摘要：AbstractPurposeTo train Community Health Workers to see themselves as contesting the diagnostic imperatives to treat "mental illness," while recognizing and addressing structural barriers to community mental wellbeing.MethodDrawing from an analysis of course material, auto-ethnographic observations of class dynamics, and social theory from Critical Public Health and Mad Studies, this paper describes three new mental wellness modules integrated into a semester-long Community Health Worker certification course in a public housing jobs program. The class met in a public housing community center in Houston, TX and consisted of a group of 15 students, both pre-health undergraduate students and local residents, who worked in teams to discuss local definitions of mental wellness and design site-specific community mental wellness programs.ResultsThe modules reframe bio-psychiatric epistemology and hierarchical ideals of medical compliance in terms of political, social, and economic struggles familiar to the residents as local community health concerns. Project-based learning encouraged students to recognize personal capacity to navigate current public mental health services and to foster collective strategies promoting peer-based approaches to community wellness.DiscussionWe note limits of our own pedagogical approach and indicate neoliberal pressures that preclude local definitions of mental wellness in favor of standardized learning and employment outcomes.Highlights•Community Health Workers creating holistic approaches to collective mental wellbeing.•Theoretical framework for communal search for knowledge about mental wellness without epistemic mastery.•Pedagogical intervention of modularized workshops on mental wellness.•Project-based learning strategies to develop local community mental wellness programs.
关键词：Community health workers;Peer support;Structural competence;Project-based learning;Community engagement;Mental wellness
