Comparative Mental Health Policy in the United Kingdom and the US

Catalog description

This elective course will be taught at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. The course takes a cross-cultural and cross-national approach to mental health, mental health services, and policy in the United Kingdom and the United States. Informed by the social determinants of health framework, the course will focus on how mental health relates to issues of social and economic justice. The first part of the course will compare and contrast the approach to social welfare in these two countries with a particular focus on the differing health care systems. Differences and similarities with regard to government role, funding and role of social workers will be explored. The second part of the course will present understandings of mental health within the global context, the social determinants of mental health, and mental health reform in the UK and the US. We will focus on the promotion of integrated health care and mental health recovery in the two countries and their influence on practice and policy. The course will conclude with a discussion of social inclusion, comparing its meaning in US and the UK, and presenting innovative developments in the field aimed at including people with lived experience of mental illnesses in all aspects of society.