To: Private List
From: starfish@northcoast.com
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 12:38:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [xxx] wish us luck
Hi
Generally this is part of the project of strengthening the dialogue "outside of the transformation box that is being implemented by DMH and local MH Depts." as Linford would say.
San Jose City College is an inner city multicultural oriented school, same with EVC. We have a new Chancellor Rosa Perez who was a Chicana militant in the 60s, with an EOPS background. Her theme was "Courageous Conversations" for this District wide "Instructional Improvement" day. Getting the human rights of mental health clients included in the discussion (the 'freedom train' problem) was what we sought.
We had about 20 people (faculty and staff) at our workshop and it went very well. They didn't leave until 15 minutes after it was supposed to be "over." Delphine talked about her study "Normal People Don't Want to Know Us" and its relation to education. Steve gave his basic PowerPoint presentation on labeling theory and how that works in practice. I mean I heard it 15 years ago but it's still basic good sense. Plus he's a psychiatric social worker so he has leverage among doubters. I talked about my connection with Scheff (which is more recent than Steve's) and social death sentence and also Paula Caplan's work on bias in psychiatric diagnosis. And mainly I related things to what it's like for an instructor and deal with "students with mental health challenges" in a righteous and respectful way.
In the educational system, we are basically "objects" rather than "subjects," and actual "client empowerment" is not widely grasped. On the other hand they don't have the systemic investment in objectification that the mental health system does, and .. anyway at SJCC/EVC they are learning the dos/don'ts of Beauty Path and the like. Much more is needed to produce a general climate of empowerment in the educational area!
José ran the Mental Health Clients Association table at lunchtime. He's currently the Vice-President of MHCA, which is a registered student "club" at SJCC.
Andrew