Workshops
We aim to build welcoming communities for newcomers and refugees facing mental health challenges in Ontario. We offer free, interactive workshops on how discrimination and stigma affects mental health.
We use popular theatre and storytelling approach to develop strategies for equity and holistic well-being.
1. Building Bridges, Anti-Racism 101
This interactive workshop uses forum theatre to explore and understand issues of racism, diversity and anti-racism. In forum theatre, audience members directly interact with the performance by stopping a scene and suggesting different actions for the actors to carry out on-stage in an attempt to change the outcome of what they are witnessing.
2. Working Across Difference: Anti-Mentalism Meets Anti-Racism
This is for people who are ready to look deeper at racism and its relationship to other forms of discrimination, including stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness diagnoses.
3. Journeys to Canada: Stories of Migration
A narrative-based workshop exploring experiences of moving to a new country: migration, stress, mental health, culture-shock, racism and resiliency. It is recommended that this workshop be offered in conjunction with “Building Bridges: Anti-Racism 101.”
4. Mental Health & Wellness 101
The workshop promotes a broad understanding of mental health issues, incorporating the social determinants of health. The workshop is designed to establish connections between individual understandings and experiences of mental health and the mental health and “illness” paradigms that are dominant in Canada.
5. Journeys Through Mental Health: A Story-Based Approach
Using a narrative approach, this workshop explores a wide range of experiences in the Canadian mental health system. It is recommended that this workshop be offered in conjunction with Mental Health & Wellness 101.
6. BREATHE: Self-Care In Stressful Times
This workshop is designed to explore, adapt and build on our culturally diverse self-care strategies and practices.
7. Starting From the ‘I’: Reflecting On Our Own Identities
This workshop will explore the relationship between our identities (who we are) and Canadian society. It will look at how our identities influence how we belong or how we are excluded and consequences of both. This workshop will help participants make use of “context” and “awareness” to help build helpful relationships with community members, services users and colleagues.
8. Shades of Gray: Anti-Mentalism 101
The concept of "mentalism" and "sanism" are introduced in this workshop. Mentalism is a form of discrimination against people who are labelled as having a mental illness. Sanism is a system of discrimination that GIVES preference to behaviours, and ways of experiencing the world, and calls them "sane." By questioning the boundries of what is considered "socially acceptable" and "social unacceptable" behaviour, the workshop explores how these boundries are shaped by different forms of discrimination, including racism and ableism.
9. Bridging the Gap: Generation & Immigration
This workshop builds on “Journeys to Canada - Stories of Migration”. It explores intergenerational family relationships in the settlement process. In this workshop, the experience of “intergenerational migration” refers to the different journeys of settlement for children, adolescents, parents and grandparents. It also refers to the richly diverse experiences of first and second generation Canadians. During the workshop, participants are guided through a series of activities that look at the meaning of “home” - both Canada and place of “origin” - for the different generations of the family.
10. Know Your Rights 101
Ideal for newcomers, mental health service users and mental health workers. It is recommended that this workshop be offered in conjunction with "Shades of Gray: Anti-Mentalism 101" and Building Brides: Anti-Racism 101." The workshop aims to familiarize participants with the Ontario Human Rights Code and build stratagies for dealing with discrimination and harasment including ways of accessing the OHRC.