Landscapes of Self-Determination: Power, Culture and Equity

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Landscapes of Self-Determination Power, Culture
and Equity

• Part Two The Mental Health Promotion
  Practitioner as an Agent of Self-Determination

Presented by Dr Lewis Williams, Director,
Prairie Region Health Promotion Research
Centre August 16, 2005
Mental Health Promotion Identity, Power
Culture Summer School 2005
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Source

• This presentation is based on Lewis Williams PhD
  research, referenced on the last slide.

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Using Your Power TransformativelyKnowing Your
Own Practice Terrain

• In what ways do key cultural, professional and
  organizational forms of power shape my practice?
• How might I exercise agency within my own
  practice i.e. the use of cultural, professional
  and organizational power in ways that increase
  self-determination and mental well-being?

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The Transformative Use of Power by the
Practitioner

• The transformative use of power can be thought of
  as those who have access to more power,
  particularly institutional forms, using it in
  ways to increase the power and choices of those
  who have less access to power.
• Practitioners have many opportunities to use
  their power this way.

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Cultural Power What Practitioners Say

• The challenges of working across different
  identity and cultural locations
• Drawing on the experience of marginal identities

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Cultural Power Reflective Questions

• How do my cultural identities and life
  experiences shape my values and perceptions of
  the world and people within it?
• What forms of power do I have access to and how
  do these influence the expression of my own
  cultural identities within my work?
• How do these power-culture dynamics influence my
  ability to work with people, particularly those
  of different cultural identities in ways that
  increase self-determination and mental wellbeing?

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Professional Power What Practitioner Say

• Unconsciously wearing your professional power
• The transformative use of professional power and
  the reflective contract

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Professional Power Reflective Questions

• How does my professional training conceptualize
  my role with people I work with?
• What are the power relations inherent in my
  professional role?
• How might I exercise my professional power to
  facilitate increased self-determination and
  mental well-being?

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Organizational Power What Practitioners Say

• Between Organization and community dual
  accountability
• Power-culture and the health promoter as
  translator from multiple and shifting positions

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The MPH Practitioners Agency Terrain
External Agency Terrain (Community context)
Globalization Global movement of capital goods. Globalization of culture via print electronic media
Socio-cultural identities statuses of groups Personal capacities, social, cultural identities statuses
Mental health capacities Access to employment, income, housing, culture, language, land, healthcare, etc
MHP practice context Locale of interactions and associated rules/norms
Social and organizational networks Degree of social cohesion, strength of horizontal vertical networks
Dominant institutions social structures Cultural systems transmitted degree of power base
External Agency Terrain (Institutional context)
Knowledge systems Western/Indigenous Feminist, critical
Public policies Treatment, prevention Promotion, development
Institutional power Cultural and power base of organization
Professional systems Which professional systems predominate

Internal Agency Terrain (MHP practitioner)
Consciousness Knowledge, critical thinking, spontaneity intuition
Identity Sense of self herstory/history, self-esteem, sense of belonging
Cultures Practitioners world views cultural affiliations
Professional power Professional knowledge and credentials
Institutional status and role Role and position within organization
Williams, L. (2005).
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Organizational Power

• Which cultural norms and values do the policies
  and practices of the organization I work for
  represent?
• How does the organization understand mental
  health promotion work?
• What are the opportunities and challenges inside
  and outside the organization for implementing MHP
  practice and policy?

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What This Means for MHP Practice.Good practice
criteria

• Taking account of cultural, professional and
  organizational power you have access to
• Constructs / theory behind practice
• Face Validity
• Transformative use of power

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References

• Williams, L. (2005). The Mental Health Promotion
  Practitioner as an agent of self-determination
  Reflections on Practice. Paper prepared for the
  Prairie Region Health Promotion Research Centre
  Summer School, University of Saskatchewan.
• Williams, L. (2001). Identity, culture and power
  Frameworks for Self-determination of Communities
  at the Margins. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Massey
  University Auckland.