Citizenship, Social Justice and Collective Empowerment: Living Outside Mental Illness

Abstract

Citizenship is emerging as one of the world’s leading models to shift mental health care from artificial psychiatric settings into more natural community settings by incorporating human rights. This paper describes a four-session roundtable series entitled Citizenship, Social Justice, and Collective Empowerment: Living Outside Mental Illness. These roundtables were part of the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network (MHTTC). They were built on the conviction that people who have lived experiences of mental health challenges and engaged in making community connections should be at the center of teaching about those experiences. Presenters shared their experiences about how they navigated stigma and discrimination on their way to community inclusion, belonging, and empowerment. The common theme across the series was the citizenship framework. The citizenship framework has inspired people to become involved in an individual and collective dynamic experience that connects them with the 5R’s of rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, relationships, and a sense of belonging in society. The outcomes from the discussion on the webinars demonstrated that peer support could be a promising intervention to increase the sense of belonging in the community.