Don't Make Me Repeat Myself is a facilitator's guide to a workshop for youth peer trainers. This detailed guide concentrates on workshops around gender based violence within an anti-oppression framework. Created by Metrac (Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Woman and Children), the manual has a great basic agenda, complete with introductions, ice breakers and forming a safer space. It uses community dynamics and personal experiences within the group to introduce anti-oppression concepts, like how to be an ally. The workshop also covers:

The Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force has put together this guide to create a peer run support network. It covers some of the principles of peer run agencies, the basics of harm reduction and much more.

Former drug users are encouraged to share their knowledge with other drug users and value the lived experiences of community members. Rather than stigmatizing former drug users, peer workers recognize that the basis of their expertise is built on understanding.

People with mental illnesses are often forced into the Canadian psychiatric complex, whether through inpatient detainment, prescription of drugs or other ways. Mad movements in Canada mirror much of the same principles as the disability rights movement, by using mental illnesses as a source of pride and an identity.

Though there is nothing wrong with voluntarily seeking counselling or drug treatments, when these are interventions taken on behalf of people's well being by the system things become problematic. Often the rights of people in the psychiatric complex are trampled, they are manipulated and coerced.

MSS Presents: "Mad Hatters in the Hammer - Coming to Terms"

The first ever MSS peer support meeting in Hamilton

Are you crazy? Labelled/DSMed with (‘serious', ‘persistent', ‘severe') ‘mental illness'? Have you been psychiatrized, therapized, case managed, social worked? (How) Do you manage ‘mental health issues' or ‘concerns' or 'challenges' or ‘problems'? How do you self-identify? Some people use words like psychiatric survivor, consumer, user, ex-patient as well as mad, psychiatrically/emotionally/socially disabled and mentally ill. Which terms do you use? Which ones are used against you?

MSS Presents: "New Year/Fear/Cheer and Community Revolutions"

What? Our January 2012 downtown peer support meeting
Where? Email Elizabeth at outreach@madstudentsociety.com for details.

How crazy was 2011? (How) Did you make it through the holidays? Come talk about the New Year and what you're worried about and looking forward to in 2012. Do you make resolutions? Dissolutions? Evolutions? Revolutions? What are your hopes for the mad community and MSS in the year ahead? Any questions you want answered? Issues you want addressed? Topics you want discussed? Events you want organized (you're so helping!)? Of course there will be plenty of time to talk about whatever else is on our minds... We welcome new members, frequent faces, and folks we haven't seen in awhile!

Mad Students Society (MSS), created in 2005, is a community of students who are attending or planning to attend institutions of post-secondary or adult education and have past/present experiences with psychiatric/mental health systems.

We meet monthly and communicate through an email listserv to support each other, discover tools for self-advocacy, and connect with our history and broader social movements.

Our next peer support meeting is in downtown Toronto. The MSS discussion listserv is open to members anywhere in the world. In-person meetings coming January 2012 to Hamilton and North York!

Mad Students Society (MSS), created in 2005, is a community of students who are attending or planning to attend institutions of post-secondary or adult education and have past and/or present experiences with psychiatric and/or mental health systems.