No More “Wellness Checks”: Building grassroots mental health first aid skills

A part of SFPIRG’s Transformative Justice summer series

Fill out this form to register!

What are the problems with police “wellness checks,” the BC Mental Health Act, and forced care? And what are alternatives to calling in the police when someone is in a mental health crisis? In this workshop, we will discuss the inherent violence of police “wellness checks” and forced care, and build our skills for responding to mental health crises without calling in the coercive powers of the state.

About the event series

This workshop is part of an event series of 4 interactive workshops that will help folks develop their knowledge and skills around organizing for transformative justice, mutual aid, and defunding the police. Together we will explore models for responding to harm without further violence and without the re-entrenchment of state violence through prisons and police. We will learn about alternatives to police and prisons, develop our skills to respond to crises without police, and organize for transformative change. Each session will be a mixture of discussion, brainstorming, skill-sharing, and panel or fishbowl discussions with those on the frontlines. 

Register for one or all sessions through this form!

Registration cut-off time for each session is 9:00 AM on the same day. e.g. you will be unable to register for “No More “Wellness Checks”: building grassroots mental health first aid skills” after 9:00 AM on Saturday July 17. Any registrants after 9:00 AM may not receive the Zoom link in time to attend.

This event series is presented by the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), the AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC), SFU Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry (SOCA), SFU Disability and Neurodiversity Alliance (SFU DNA), the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS), the UBC Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO), and the UBC Social Justice Centre (UBC SJC), made possible with generous support from Pivot Legal Society and PeerNetBC. 

Each session will be online from 10-5pm, with a 1-hour lunch break. Full list of sessions:

• Saturday July 3: Organizing for a police-free world 
• Saturday July 10: No Cops on Campus: imagining police-free universities & colleges
• Saturday July 17: No More “Wellness Checks”: building grassroots mental health first aid skills
• Saturday July 24: What’s My Place? Reflections & next steps in movement-building

Accessibility

ASL interpretation is confirmed for this event. You will be asked to indicate if you require this service when you register for free through this form. 

A Zoom link will be emailed to participants ahead of time.

Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that SFPIRG occupies unceded Indigenous land of Coast Salish peoples. Based on our current knowledge, this includes the territories of the Musqueam, Skwxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututh, Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Katzie, Qayqayt, Semiahmoo, and Tsawwassen nations. Unceded means this land was never surrendered, relinquished or handed over in any way. In this work around transformative justice, we recognize policing and carceral systems as part of the violence of settler colonialism, and thus we strive to bring forward anti-colonial analyses and to echo the demands of Indigenous folks for decolonization and land back.