Community-Engaged Mental Health Practices with Immigrants in Canada
This presentation will delve into a comprehensive exploration of critical social justice-based mental health practices with diverse immigrant communities in Canada, drawing upon 2.5 decades of clinical experiences and research. It will highlight the pivotal role of community-engaged practices in fostering equitable mental health and wellbeing, aligning with worldviews that prioritize collective welfare over individualized interventions. Drawing on stories from research examining issues such as the psychosocial adaptation of refugees, culturally inclusive approaches for health research with Black Canadians, and intimate partner violence with African communities, the presentation will elucidate how community-based participatory research, with its emphasis on power sharing, collaboration, and valuing of cultural ways of knowing and being, can serve as a decolonizing and liberating method for addressing social justice issues in psychology.
Dr. Sophie Yohani
Professor of Counselling Psychology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta
Dr. Sophie Yohani is a first-generation immigrant settler from Tanzania residing in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty Six territory. She has a background in counselling and community psychology, global mental health, and elementary education. Her research utilizes community-engaged values and practices to address mental health promotion, interventions, and equity with migrants, including African/Black communities in Canada. Dr. Yohani is a former co-director of the Division of Clinical Services at the University of Alberta and frequently serves as an expert consultant for various non-profit and public sectors, including the Office of the Child & Youth Advocate (Alberta) and the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is passionate about mentoring and training mental health professionals in Canada and internationally, including in her birth country, Tanzania. Dr. Yohani has received the University of Alberta’s Killam Annual Professorship (2021) and ECN’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) for her contributions to health and education in both the academy and community.
Jessy Dame
Director of Two-Spirit Health, Indigenous Wellness Leader
Jessy Dame is a very proud Two-Spirit, Métis, Certified Registered Nurse. Jessy’s family is from Treaty 1 and 2 territory, which is known today as Winnipeg and St Rose-du-lac. Jessy has worked within Neonatal/Postnatal health. He currently works casually within a queer sexual health clinic in downtown Vancouver. Jessy is the Indigenous Sex and Gender Leader within the Indigenous Wellness team and the Director of Two-Spirit Health with the Community Based Research Centre. Through these roles Jessy is able to work with and for the Two-Spirit community to create resources and advocate for services.