Disrupting The Academy With Lived Experience Led Knowledge

By exploring a range of social justice issues from first-hand perspectives, this book reframes our understanding of knowledge production. It demonstrates that when lived experience experts lead the way, their knowledge can enrich, transform and decolonise research, teaching and advocacy.

This book firmly positions lived experience-led expertise as a unique and compelling form of knowledge in decolonising and disrupting research, teaching and advocacy. Based on the insights of people with first-hand experiences, each chapter presents unique accounts and reflections on a diverse range of social justice issues. Together, the authors’ perspectives centre lived experiences in the production of knowledge, challenge outsider-imposed views, and create new research and writing norms. They demonstrate that, when lived experience experts lead the way, their knowledge of how to address social injustices can enrich, transform and decolonise research, teaching and advocacy. This collection is an invaluable resource for academic and community-based researchers, practitioners, advocates, educators, policy makers, students and people whose lived experiences and views continue to be marginalised across diverse settings.

This unique, holistic and radical perspective on participatory practice has been updated to reflect on advances made in the past decade and the impact of austerity. The innovative text bridges the divide between community development ideas and practice and considers how to bring about transformative social change.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) privileges the involvement of participants as co-researchers to generate new knowledge and act on findings to effect social change. In PAR projects, academic researchers collaborate closely with co-researchers, working form the idea that these individuals, especially those who are usually marginalized from institutions, can be engaged in meaningful research activities to achieve social justice outcomes in addition to answering research questions. When deployed ethically in collaboration with co-researchers, PAR's participatory element facilitates a 'bottom-up' approach where knowledge is co-created through grassroots or community-based activities. This book goes beyond a PAR 'how to' manual on the methodology. Rather it synthesizes key learnings in contemporary research, with a distinct focus on the challenging aspects of undertaking PAR in practice and strategies to address these. It provides a clear and user-friendly collection of practical and contextual examples and presents key pointers on the implications of PAR methods, their strengths and weaknesses, and strategies for the field. These examples will be useful for critical class discussions, as well as to anticipate fieldwork pitfalls and pre-empt challenges through collaborative approaches.

What is participatory research, and how can participatory methods be implemented in practice? This valuable textbook provides an accessible, pragmatic how-to guide for using participatory methods in research. Drawing on their variety of experience in the field, the authors: • outline the principles of participatory research; • explore the practice of utilising participatory methods; • lay out the realities of using such approaches within a range of settings. Providing practical advice, real-world examples, and packed with reflective questions, top tips and suggested further reading, this book will be an essential resource for students and researchers alike.

Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

This book examines for the first time the exclusionary nature of prevailing political ideologies. Bringing together theory, practice and the relationship between participation, political ideology and social welfare, it offers a detailed critique of how the crucial move to more participatory approaches may be achieved.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.