With psychosis rates rising, Amar Ghelani partners with people with lived experience to build better learning materials for social work students

Posted on April 23, 2026
Categories: Amar Ghelani, Eunjung Lee, Faculty, PhD students, Programs + Teaching, Research, Students

8 members of the Project Team that created new Psychosis Teaching Materials

Left to right: Eunjung Lee, Megan Davis, Caroline Walker, Onika Dainty, Amar Ghelani, Katie Stadelman, Narot Kabasaka, and David Puvan

During her first psychotic episode, Caroline Walker remembers being physically restrained by health care workers at a hospital and having no idea why. “I was treated like an annoying body that needed to be held down, rather than seen as a person who needs to be communicated to and given a sense of agency, control, consent,” she said.

What she needed, she said, was someone who could convey a sense of safety. “It’s really up to you to be that person in the room,” she told the students in the Advanced Social Work Practice in Mental Health course.

Walker is one of two people with lived experience of psychosis who are helping develop new resources to address an important gap in social work education: how to support people with psychosis. They are part of a team led by Assistant Professor Amar Ghelani that’s piloting new resources to help strengthen teaching and training. Faculty members and social work practitioners with experience serving this population are part of the team as well.

“Social work students are often undereducated about how to support people who are struggling with signs of psychosis,” says Ghelani, who has over 18 years of experience working with individuals, families, and groups with complex mental health concerns. “Those who do work in this area usually learn on the job.”

The growing need for care

With rates of psychosis rising, particularly among young people, preparing social workers to support clients who experience psychosis is more important than ever. The exact reasons for increased rates require further research, though Ghelani says it could be linked to stress stemming from the pandemic and increased access to drugs that are known to induce psychotic symptoms, such as cannabis. Genetics and childhood trauma area are also well-established contributing factors.

As critical providers of mental health services, social workers interact with people who are showing signs of psychosis in a variety of settings, including outreach programs, community agencies, schools, hospitals, crisis services, and shelters, says Ghelani. “It can be difficult to maintain housing if you have a mental health condition that involves psychosis,” he explains.

Psychosis is a complex condition that involves disconnection from reality and symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech, emotional problems, cognitive difficulties, social withdrawal, and other challenges. For some, it can develop into a persistent psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, and early intervention is important to improve outcomes.

Strengthening psychosis education for social workers

To help better train social work students to support people with psychosis, Ghelani’s team developed a variety of new materials, including an online education guide. They’ve also produced a video featuring interviews with two people with lived experience (one of which is Walker) and two experienced practitioners (one of which is second year PhD student Katie Stadelman, who has been working in a psychiatric department of pediatric hospital for the past 14 years).

Given the important role that simulation learning plays in helping aspiring social workers safely practice their skills, the research team created a guide for actors portraying clients with psychosis as well. In addition, Walker and Onika Dainty (the other member of the project team with lived experience) gave in-person presentations to each class, sharing what it’s like to experience psychosis and how they were treated.

“A lot of people with psychosis are really reluctant to access help, so engagement is key,” says Ghelani. “Social workers provide contextually informed services and care that are not offered by other kinds of professionals.” This could include ongoing therapeutic relationships, the ability to advocate on their clients’ behalf, and helping them meet key needs related to housing, food, clothing, and family support.

Student impact

The resources created by the research team were piloted this winter in the Advanced Social Work Practice in Mental Health course. At the end of the semester, the students were invited to complete an online survey to share their feedback. While the results of the study will likely be published within the next year, students who took the course are already saying it has helped better prepare them to work with a population they realize they are likely to encounter.

“I really appreciated the experience working with an actor,” said MSW student Amanda Yates, referring to the simulation learning exercises where students roleplayed with trained actors portraying clients exhibiting signs of psychosis. “Connecting what we learned in class and from the materials to an actual person in front of me, it really helped make everything more concrete, and the feedback from my prof on how I handled the conversation was really helpful.”

She said being able to hear directly from people with lived experience and knowing that they contributed to the teaching resources was incredibly valuable as well. “They’re very invested in having psychosis education be good for the people who are actively going through it. And it was so helpful to be able to ask them questions.”

This is why people with lived experience are integral to the educational process, argues Ghelani. “They’ve been on the other side of receiving support. They can share what helped them and what didn’t and highlight the gaps in care that they received.”