How diverse perspectives and lived experiences strengthen our understanding of the policies and systems that affect health and mental health
Categories: Programs + Teaching, Students
How do policies, culture, historical legacies, and systems of care impact our health and mental health?
The course SWK 4412H: The Context of Mental Health and Health Practice provides the opportunity for students to answer this question, drawing on readings, recent media, guest lectures, and invigorating class discussions. Throughout the course, students strengthen their capacity to identify and address how broader systems embedded within our institutions and communities affect one’s health and mental health – an essential skill that social workers bring to both their clients and the healthcare teams they work with.
A report created by one of the classes in this multi-section course for students in the Mental Health and Health field of study highlights the collective wisdom and knowledge that the students both contributed to and gained from the course. Facilitated by Sessional Lecturer Sandy Rao, the online publication summarizes the diverse perspectives and reflections that the students shared in logs completed at the close of each class.
“The report not only summarizes what the students learned in class, it also demonstrates their ability to learn from each other’s diverse perspectives and lived experience,” says Rao. “Students in the class gained a better understanding of their capacity to enact change. We explored how little steps over time can create something impactful.”
Presented in an online flipbook, the report is now available to readers interested in learning about and reflecting on social work in the context of mental health and health practice. It can also be used to further dialogue, discussion and advocacy.
As outlined in the first pages of the publication, the report is “a testament to the philosophy of ‘all teach, and all learn’.”
“In this classroom, every voice contributed to the collective knowledge,” wrote the authors. “Learners did not simply absorb information – they analyzed it, critiqued it, and reshaped it through the lenses of their identities and experiences. Each reflection demonstrated the power of mutual learning: insights are shared and deepened through dialogue and interaction.”
Topics covered include the role of policy in social work, Indigenous perspectives and decolonization, trauma-informed and culturally sensitive practices, social determinants of health and housing, relationship building and allyship, equity in access to healthcare, neoliberalism and social work values, and the role of public opinion in policy.
“By documenting weekly reflections, learners collectively build a portfolio of insights, emphasizing the actionable wisdom inherent in the classroom, even amidst the maelstrom of local, provincial, national and global crises,” says Rao. “Together we learn that there are opportunities to act meaningfully, however small.”
Read the students’ online Reflection Report here.
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