Videos
Vivienne Guevara from the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work hosted an IG Live that included Maria Thomas from Interrupting Criminalization and Professor Nev Jones (interviewed here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/09/a-conversation-with-nev-jones/). I spoke representing the Transformative Mental Health training organization IDHA (for which I am a Board member). Cameron Rasmussen from The Center for Justice helped organize as well.
This conversation was in direct response to NYC Mayor Adam’s proposing that cops will be taking more people off of the streets who might not be caring for themselves adequately. We highlighted the failings of our current systems of care and proposed alternatives rooted in the concept of community care.
The video is hosted on NAASW’s instagram and is approximately one hour long.
Johann Hari gives a sparkling 14 minute TED talk about addiction - and the social factors that define it. Busting all myths about biological causes of addiction, Hari lays clear the basis for a harm reduction approach - based on finding connection with those who may be suffering with unhelpful substance use. If you watch one video about addiction, this should be it.
Jay-Z, Molly Crabapple, and the Drug Policy Alliance joined forces to take on the War on People (drugs) in a 4-minute mind-blast. This is it folks - summed up better than I ever could - and I train folx on the topic. Here it from the man himself: the War is a racist, classist war of people. The only way it could be called a success is if the purpose was to imprison a whole generation of Black men. Hm.
Harm Reductionist and Abolitionist Shira Hassan gives it to us all as raw as it needs to be. This is Harm Reduction 101, 201, and more. Addresses the professionalization of helping for licensed professionals. Lays bare the dangers of the carceral state. Listen to some truth from someone who has lived it, thought about it, and is challenging it. Drug (Risk)/Set/Setting model explained.
Why talk about radicalizing continuing education? If we want to abolish the mental health industrial complex, we have to start with our education system and how we conceive of what is considered valid knowledge. Dreaming of community care and de-professionalizing helping can’t happen when those of us within the system continue to uphold and reinforce it by prioritizing our own expertise over the lived experience of the people we serve. Until we break ourselves open to a central truth – that people are experts in their own lives – we will continue to stand in the way of transformative change.
In this pod-blog (or is it a blog-cast? The jury’s still out…), we attempt to challenge the prevailing mandates of professionalized continuing education and name its harms, while uplifting the alternative: learning from the people most impacted by carceral mental health systems.
Enter: self work. Can I de-identify as an expert? Can I uncomfortably challenge the assumption that the dominant paradigm helps more than it hurts? And if I can, what does that mean for my profession – my livelihood? And am I willing to look in that mirror?
Please join us for this ongoing and, so far, incomplete conversation. We can only speak from our experiences as ourselves, and welcome your curiosity about what a future without professionalized helping looks like and whether that is a future worth fighting for.