Mental Health Addictions and Criminal Justice (Advanced Certificate)

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Overview

The Advanced Certificate in Mental Health, Addictions, and Criminal Justice is designed to broaden graduates’ lens of practice and provide them with the knowledge, skills, and values to deliver and advocate for an integrated service model in the fields of criminal justice and mental health and addictions. The program prepares graduates to apply an inter-professional approach to the provision of services and supports for individuals with mental health or substance use challenges in contact with the criminal justice system.

Students build on their existing knowledge and skills to develop a shared foundational knowledge of the theories, systems, methods, and models of practice of the criminal justice and mental health disciplines, in addition to a common professional language and values.

Upon completion of the program, graduates will have an enhanced understanding of and ability to provide integrated services and supports, as well as to advocate for change in the systems and structures that individuals with mental health or substance use challenges experience in the justice system. Graduates will also have an increased understanding of the impact of systems, colonization, decolonization, and systemic racism on Indigenous peoples and communities.

Operating from a social justice perspective, the program emphasizes the values related to and importance of social responsibility, advocacy, community-capacity building, and inter-professional practice.