• Where: Chapel Arts, 304 Dunlevy, Vancouver
• When: May 2nd, 7:30-8:30 pm.
• RSVP: intersectionality.institute@gmail.com

The Centre’s third annual Spring Institute for trainees and Faculty of Health Sciences Master’s students is on this week. The two-day workshop will explore Decolonizing/Indigenous and Mad Studies approaches to redressing social inequities and promoting wellness.

Decolonizing approaches aim to dismantle the ongoing practices and effects of colonialism while reclaiming and centering the knowledge, histories, life experiences, and ways of knowing of Indigenous Peoples. Mad Studies privileges the knowledge and perspectives of people who have been considered mad, insane or mentally ill.

In particular participants will explore the strategies and practical implications of these approaches for promoting health and healing in diverse historical and social contexts, and for promoting liberatory ‘mental health’ praxis that does not re-inscribe relations of dominance derived from histories of sanism and colonialism.

Invited experts:

Gord Bruyere (Amawaajibitang) is Anishnabe, originally from Couchiching First Nation and now lives on Anishnabe territory in Lakefield, ON. He is a poet, writer, musician and educator. He is co-editor of Wícihitowin: Aboriginal Social Work in Canada.

Since the late ’90s, he has led the development and implementation of a First Nations Specialization (BSW) at the University of Victoria, the first Aboriginal-centred BSW program in BC at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. Recently he developed a new diploma program for the Native Education College and on-line Indigenous Cultural Competency training for the Provincial Health Services Authority of BC.

He is currently completing a self-directed residency for Aboriginal Artists at the Banff Centre for the Arts to complete his first manuscript of poetry.

Erick Fabris is a psychiatric survivor, mad activist, and ethnographic writer. After being forcibly treated in Vancouver in 1993, he returned to Toronto, working with West End Psychiatric Survivors to initiate Survivor Pride Day. He soon began to advocate with the Queen Street Patients Council and co-founded the No Force Coalition in Ontario.

Erick’s recently published book on psychiatric coercion, Tranquil Prisons: Chemical Incarceration Under Community Treatment Orders calls for abandoning forced treatment which shortens life spans, causes iatrogenic impairments, and mentally disables us all through mentalist and sanist labels. It discusses how preemptive and surreptitious control of behavior with toxic psychoactive substances are unethical treatment and an unconstitutional restraint.

Currently Erick lectures in Disability Studies at Toronto’s Ryerson University, helps consumer/survivor agencies with website development, and is promoting his research.

When: April 23, 2012 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Where: Room 1530 at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings, Vancouver BC
RSVP: By April 12, 2012 to tbaron00@mylangara.bc.ca

More details…

Over 300 registered participants heard stories of and innovative programs for recovery. Primarily the presentations affirmed the success of recovery informed practices. However, some speakers did challenge the notion of recovery as it is being taken up by policy decision makers and psychiatric services, questioning if recovery is something new or just the same care with a new name. Part of the argument is that the activist and survivor voice is not being heard as loudly as the academic or medical treatment voice. Of course the issue of restraints and treatment orders continues to challenge the potential of recovery practice.

Based on what we heard at the conference and saw at the Recovery College in Nottingham it appears that the National Health Services in England has embraced recovery and is weaving this more and more into policy and practice guidelines. Some speakers that we will be following include: Peter Beresford (Brunel University), Mary O’Hagan (Advocate and consultant from New Zealand and Wendy Bryant (Brunel University, Researching Psychosis Together group).

The Inviting Voice/Creating Space for Cowichan Valley Women project “will investigate how Cowichan women’s experiences of marginalization and social exclusion affect their participation in community life as well as their health and well-being. The project will also develop a collaborative strategy for women’s health action, by identifying the actions or systemic changes that will facilitate safety, well-being and social inclusion if implemented as health promotion strategies. This three-year project will generate locally relevant actions at both service and policy levels.”

In addition, the team has secured funding from Kloshe Tillicum, for the purposes of bringing on First Nations women community members as research assistants on the project.

Congratulations to Thanya and her intrepid research team and supporters!

Thursday, January 26, 2012
4 pm – 6 pm
Liu Institute for Global Issues, UBC
6476 NW Marine Drive
Vancouver, BC

Following the viewing of Canada’s first documentary film about illegal drugs, trafficking and addiction (Drug Addict, 1948), a 34-minute “realist” voice over documentary created as an educational tool for law agents and professionals, Dr. Susan Boyd will discuss the film and international and national and perspectives on drug policy. Documentary films such as Drug Addict are worthy of investigation because they provide insight into early foundational discourses about illegal drugs, addiction, treatment and law enforcement that still resonate today.

Susan Boyd, PhD, is Professor in Studies in Policy, University of Victoria and CGSM co-investigator. She is a drug policy researcher, community activist, and author of Hooked: Drug War Films from Britain, Canada, and the U.S.; From Witches to Crack Moms: Women, Drug Law, and Policy; Mothers and Illicit drugs, and co-author of Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives.

“The FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children (School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University), in partnership with the Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Violence, the Canadian Observatory on the Justice System’s Response to Intimate Partner Violence, the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia, and our National and Regional Advisory Committees invites you to submit presentation proposals for our National Research Day 2012, November 7-9, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Conference Theme:

Sexual violence, domestic violence: Exploring the continuum of violence against women and girls

The conference will bring together community-based anti-violence organizations and service providers; social workers, health care providers, and criminal justice personnel; women in all their diversity who have lived experiences of violence; government and policy makers; and academic and community-based researchers to explore the continuum of violence against women and girls.

Please see attached Call for Presentations (English and French) or visit our website for further information and submission instructions: http://fredacentre.com/events

Proposal Submission Deadline: April 30, 2012″