MENTAL HEALTH HAS A SOCIAL CONTEXT BY JIM MORTON, MSW, SOCIAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE CHAIR
I’m drafting this report in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and its uncertainty. The emergency is colouring everything. An invisible and as-yet untreatable virus endangers us. In our efforts to protect ourselves though social distance, our lives have been shorn of routine; nothing is as it was. We are threatened by illness, by being on the front lines of essential services, by unemployment, by loss of income, and by inability to meet rent and mortgage costs. We have little clarity about what is coming next or how the crisis will end.
and addictions teams. As the College explored these issues, its focus coalesced around the significance of the social determinants of health, on the necessity of genuine consultation with communities about service needs, on the importance of funding that meets World Health Organization standards, and on the imperative of looking at mental health as a life-long journey that can only be understood within the context of community and clientfamily experience.
All of these threats strain our experience of well-being as individuals and families, ironically making our Social Justice Committee’s focus on achieving optimum mental health for Nova Scotians more important than ever.
I am deeply grateful for the participation of
During the past year, this committee’s continued attention has centred on concerns initially raised by social workers about an undervaluing of social work within mental health
20 Connection | Spring 2020
our committee members who inform and energize our work, and our staff advisor who provides professional leadership and valued support.
