#decolonizingmentalhealth

[blackmentalhealthandwellness]

Reimagine The Future

[blackmentalhealthandwellness]

Heal The Mind

[blackmentalhealthandwellness]

Expose the System

[blackmentalhealthandwellness]

The Structure of This Blog

Three Pillars of Transformation

Exposing the System — revealing the historical and structural forces that criminalize Black men.

Healing the Mind — exploring trauma, identity, resilience, and culturally grounded healing.

Reimagining the Future — uplifting community-led solutions, policy reform, and liberation-centered care.

“Mass incarceration is a modern mechanism of social control” (Hinton et al., 2018).

[rethreadingmadness]

Decolonizing mental health:  What is it? 

Decolonizing mental health:  What is it?  Norman Leech, is currently the Executive Director for the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House, and was the Executive Director for Vancouver Aboriginal Community Policing Centre from 2016-2023. He still works to change the fact that Indigenous people are “over-represented in most negative social health indicators, whether homelessness, incarceration, crime victims, children-in-care, poverty, missing, murdered, income, suicide, life expectancy, and on and on.” (Conference Board of Canada)  Norman is from the T’it’q’et community of the St’at’imc nation but was born and raised in East Vancouver. “He draws on his experiences as a recovering alcoholic/ addict, computer nerd, inter-generational survivor, and spiritual explorer to inform his current work.” (Conference Board of Canada).   Norman chats with Bernadine about what it is and why it is important today to look at mental health from a decolonized perspective.  He also delves into its origins, who can benefit from it, and where you can find it.  Music by Shari Ulrich