Following the development of Nellie’s Women and Mental Health position paper in 2010, Nellies has continued to be active in the advancement of a trauma-informed framework and education regarding  Women, Trauma and Mental Health.

In 2010 members of the Social Justice Committee attended the Psych Out Conference at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education here in Toronto. Rebecca Rogers and Meghan Hogg gave a presentation on how Nellie’s has developed and implemented a trauma-informed framework and how other organizations could benefit from adopting one as well. In 2011 the Psych Out Conference was held in New York City and Meghan Hogg attended to engage in a dialogue about how this model can continue to be used to resist the medicalization of women’s experiences.

On May 6, 2012 at 1:00pm, the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault is organizing Occupy Psychiatry: A nonviolent action during which survivors and activists will occupy the front grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where shock treatment is still occurring today.

The location is 250 College St (near College and Spadina). There will be speeches, testimonies, food and entertainment in protest of psychiatric imperialism.  We are participating in this action in solidarity with Boycott Normal: Occupy Psychiatric Association in Philadelphia in an effort to have global resistance to psychiatry. The organizers of this rally list many reasons for this day:  fraudulent diagnoses, the discredited medical model of “mental illness,” and harmful “treatments” such as ECT (electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy) and drugging (chemical lobotomies,)

For more information on Occupy Psychiatry, please visit the facebook event page here.