The Empowerment Council is a voice for service users and advocates on a systemic level for clients of mental health and addiction services. The EC values equity, justice and respect while maintaining accountability and integrity. These principles allow for an inclusive and people-first approach and guide the EC’s work.
The Empowerment Council conducts our work in several key areas. By ensuring that our work is service user led, we are able to best advocate for and support our service users and their empowerment. To learn more about our Advocacy Priorities and see some of the work we have done, click on the following links.
- Human Rights and Ethics
- Service User Leadership
- Meaningful Client Engagement
- Changing Policy and Practice
- Seeking Justice
- Service User Knowledge
- Research
- Community Solidarity and Partnerships
Human Rights and Ethics
The most basic and important priority of the Empowerment Council is to protect and advance the human rights of service users. The CAMH Bill of Client Rights was developed to assert and promote the dignity and worth of all of the people who use the services of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The Bill of Client Rights expresses the truth that clients are first and foremost human beings with the same rights as every Canadian. The CAMH Bill of Client Rights was one of the EC’s first priorities and created in collaboration with CAMH in 2004. The Empowerment Council also educates the healthcare sector, employees and the public on human and patient rights.
The EC has also intervened on behalf of people with addictions in two connected cases that were presented before the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) and led to changes in legislation. The court ruled that people with addictions could not be denied disability support because they had an addiction.
Service User-Led
The Empowerment Council is run by and for service users. They drive our advocacy and education work and determine our priorities and needs. It is vital that they are served first and foremost. The EC supports the development and advancement of service user-led organizations. This includes advocating to the City of Toronto to include the service user community voice when developing alternatives to policing.
The EC has also developed a service user research and ethics group to oversee the work of CAMH centered Projects. And the EC has developed curriculum that centres the voice and scholarship of service users.
Meaningful Client Engagement
The EC strives for the empowerment of service users regarding all services that affect them. We play a meaningful role in decision-making, requesting not just a seat at the table but being valued and making a difference at the table. We believe that mental health and addiction services should be accountable to the clients they serve.
At CAMH, the EC organised and amplified the voice of CAMH service users. One particular case is the Safewards project, a pilot program at CAMH that engaged staff and service users in a positive and proactive way to reduce conflict. The EC authored an article on the Safewards method that led to changes. Presently, nine Ontario facilities serving forensic mental health patients (including CAMH) have adopted the Safewards method.
“…EC does the kind of critical thinking work that is so important and missing in other engagement projects. EC puts service users first.”
Christina Foisy Equity and Engagement Team Provincial System Support Program (PSSP) at CAMH
Changing Policy and Practice
Through reflecting the self-identified needs of service users, the Empowerment Council works tirelessly to change policies and improve practices at CAMH and in the broader mental health and addiction system. The EC is a rights-oriented and trauma-informed organization. We work towards changing the operation of any services, structures or legislation that affect service users (such as working with the Toronto Police Services, Ontario Disability Support Program and more.)
The EC advances service user rights, safety, and the self-identified needs of service users at monthly CAMH Clinical Care Committee meetings. One development was requiring that positive views of people be included in their records so that people are understood in a more holistic manner, not just assessed for risk.
The EC has published research on clinical documentation practices and for years, the EC requested data on restraint use at CAMH be examined and that demographics statistics (such as race and gender identity) be transparent and shared with clients. We have also pushed for trauma informed practices.
Seeking Justice
Seeking justice is a foundation of the Empowerment Council. This includes addressing legislative and senate committees about how laws directly affect service users. We provide assistance to judicial courts with interpreting laws, and make inquest recommendations to prevent future deaths. We engage with police services to address the humane treatment of service users.
The EC facilitated access for CAMH patients to the 2011 Zyprexa Class Action Suit which resulted in a number of compensation awards including individuals from our membership
The EC intervened successfully in a case with “G”. G’s case was about people who had been found Not Criminally Responsible by Reason of Mental Disorder. For people found NCR, there was no appeal to be removed from a sex offender registry, no matter how minor and unintended an act they had committed. By comparison, people who had been found guilty of a sexual offence could appeal to be removed from the registry. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that this was discriminatory, and granted the right of appeal, quoting the EC in part of their ruling.
Service User Knowledge
The Empowerment Council is dedicated to advancing and profiling Service User Knowledge. This knowledge comes out of direct experience from those who identify as having a history of mental health/substance use issues. This lived experience has shaped a body of work and knowledge, challenging dominant assumptions and stereotypes. Service users should be the ones to guide research findings and sharing of knowledge.
Through numerous courses and workshops, the EC has taught University of Toronto psychiatric residents and nurses at Ryerson and York Universities. Classes have centred on service user scholarship, discrimination and putting intersectionality theory into action. The EC created and facilitated an advisory entitled InSight, for the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry. We subsequently published a report on considerations for including service users and further collaborated with UofT support to design and implement curriculum for the course, “Centring Madness.” which has taught new residents for four years. This work is now recognized by the Mental Health Commission of Canada in their “Champions and Changemakers” report.
Research
A guiding principle of the Empowerment Council’s work is changing policy and involving practice through research. The EC advocates for participatory research, meaning that service users are involved in the development, conducting and analysis of research.
This includes assisting with grants, research partnerships with CAMH and other stakeholders. For example, the study Barriers and Facilitators in which the EC was a partner in a study identifying barriers to primary care for people with mental health and/or substance use issues.
Community Solidarity and Partnerships
The Empowerment Council recognizes the value of community and works through an intersectionality framework. Building, sustaining and creating solidarity and partnerships is key to our advocacy. The EC works alongside organizations who advocate for service users also affected by systemic issues such as homelessness, broader disability and the penal system.
Our partners include the GTA Disability Coalition, Correctional Reform Coalition, John Howard Society of Ontario, Ryerson School of Disability Studies, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, the Provincial System Support Program (PSSP) at CAMH and others.
One case of community solidarity in action was cooperating with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner to require the Toronto Police Service to restrict their release of information about people in crisis. When organizations come together in the interest of protecting service users, we witness the power of community solidarity.