Unlicensed: Radicalizing Continuing Education
Why talk about radicalizing continuing education? If we want to abolish the mental health industrial complex, we have to start with our education system and how we conceive of what is considered valid knowledge. Dreaming of community care and de-professionalizing helping can’t happen when those of us within the system continue to uphold and reinforce it by prioritizing our own expertise over the lived experience of the people we serve. Until we break ourselves open to a central truth – that people are experts in their own lives – we will continue to stand in the way of transformative change.
In this pod-blog (or is it a blog-cast? The jury’s still out…), we attempt to challenge the prevailing mandates of professionalized continuing education and name its harms, while uplifting the alternative: learning from the people most impacted by carceral mental health systems.
Enter: self work. Can I de-identify as an expert? Can I uncomfortably challenge the assumption that the dominant paradigm helps more than it hurts? And if I can, what does that mean for my profession – my livelihood? And am I willing to look in that mirror?
Please join us for this ongoing and, so far, incomplete conversation. We can only speak from our experiences as ourselves, and welcome your curiosity about what a future without professionalized helping looks like and whether that is a future worth fighting for.
VIEW THE CLOSED CAPTION TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS POD BLOG HERE
Resources and References
Leah Pressman (she/her) and Jay Stevens (he/him) live and work together in New York City with their three cats. Both work as program directors for mobile case management and mental health treatment teams at a non-profit agency.
Leah is a licensed clinical social worker by training, and continuously invests in unlearning unhelpful lessons from her formal education. She’s divorced (literally) from a path that no longer serves her; and has since committed to a life rooted in intentional choices, connection with others, creative expression, justice, and kindness. Leah finds purpose in nurturing her community and building systems that give a sh*. She’s a proud maker of home-cooked meals, crochet, collage, and any and all crafts that inspire her. Leah is an IDHA member and organizer with IDHA’s Training Committee. You can find her on the internet @leah.makesthings
Jay is both a harm reductionist and licensed mental health counselor (perhaps a contradiction of terms). He identifies as a person with lived experience of unhelpful substance use, being unhoused, and incarceration. He leads his team with a Harm Reduction and Decarceration lens to support those who are unhoused and/or living with mental health diagnoses. Jay believes in the foundational power of human connection, and the imperative to explore the link between personal and societal transformation. He dreams of mental health care led by people with lived experience that is community-based and free from surveillance and coercion. He organizes with IDHA and serves as treasurer of IDHA’s board of directors. Jay operates rooflesslove.com.