We are working toward an inclusive society that creatively empowers people living with mental distress to live a meaningful life, access the supports they need, and values their contributions to the well-being of themselves and their communities. Our aim is to create a national community of practice that will connect like-minded survivors, researchers, advocates and allies, and those working in mental health.
This community of practice initiative emerged following discussions at the After the Asylum conference in Vancouver, BC held November 2014. This conference presented the findings from a 5-year national project that looked at the ongoing legacy of deinstitutionalization, linking the past to the present through presentations, art, photography, and film to foster better mental health policy, practices, and understanding.
- To support groups, agencies, and individuals working on innovative psychiatric-survivor driven mental health initiatives through learning, connecting with others, and bringing together experiential knowledge and research
- To serve as an inclusive forum that actively encourages the involvement of psychiatric survivors who may also self-identify as consumers of mental health services, anti-psychiatry activists, or people with lived experience of mental illness in sharing program ideas that work, in leading and collaborating on research to promote and validate practices in mental health care that address the concerns of the survivor and in policy and program planning, implementation, and evaluation processes.
- To serve as a resource for researchers, students, and policy and program developers interested in research and advocacy for psychiatric survivors (as mental health providers, advocates and/or researchers, etc.) through examples of innovative practice, a forum of discussion, and possible contacts with survivors and their programs
