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Now, more than ever

January 20th, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Now, more than ever)

Treatment as prevention is a new—but underutilized— approach to preventing HIV/AIDS in B.C.

Leading international HIV/AIDS expert and researcher Dr. Julio Montaner will be in Nanaimo next week to speak about the “Treatment as Prevention” approach to HIV. Remarkable advances in HIV treatment have been achieved in B.C. over the past two decades, but uptake of those treatments remains suboptimal—particularly among hard to reach individuals with challenges related to drug dependency, mental illness, limited education and unstable housing. (more…)

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Unpacking the housing numbers

September 16th, 2010 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Unpacking the housing numbers)

Study looks at data to see where the B.C. government has increased social housing

A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found that over the past five years British Columbia has seen an increase of about 1,500 units of new supportive housing for the homeless and housing for frail seniors. But the province has also seen a loss of 2,820 independent social housing units.

Taken together, the government’s own data indicate an overall net increase of only 280 actual social housing units over the past five years, a finding the group calls “sobering and concerning.” In response, the B.C. Liberal government’s housing minister said, “Our housing strategy is working.” He provided a range of statistics to show what has occurred. (more…)

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Survivor advocates for ‘mad studies’

September 9th, 2010 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Survivor advocates for ‘mad studies’)

Phebe Wolframe’s research into connections among madness, gender, and academia

PhebeAnn Wolframe is a proud psychiatric survivor and an advocate for mad studies who is currently completing a PhD degree in English and Cultural Studies. Phebe also presented at the PsychOUT Conference in Toronto last May. Her presentation was titled The Madwoman in the Academy: Making Space for The Mad Movement in Feminist Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Phebe points out that the second-wave feminist movement and the mad movements, though sharing many points of intersection, have not managed to work effectively in tandem. (more…)

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Yoga helps in cancer recovery

July 15th, 2010 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Yoga helps in cancer recovery)

Nicole Culos-Reed’s research shows that yoga is helpful to the survivors of breast cancer

Recent research has found that the practice of hatha yoga has had a positive impact on the psychological health of women who have survived breast cancer. The 2005 study [opens to PDF] was conducted by researchers associated with the University of Calgary.

Since that time, YogaThrive, a community-based program created specifically for cancer survivors, has become more available across Canada and the U.S. The intent is to translate successful research into community programs. (more…)

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A history of mistreatment

July 8th, 2010 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on A history of mistreatment)

Robert Whitaker updates Mad in America, the revealing history of psychiatric treatment

In Robert Whitaker’s Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, “one lone author bears moral witness to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people abused, tortured and damaged by the psychiatric establishment.” The book is a history of the treatment of the severely mentally ill in the United States from colonial times until today, and it may surprise many readers who assume that the modern psychopharmacology era has “revolutionized” the care of the severely mentally ill. The second edition of Mad in America has just recently been published. (more…)

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Aboriginal income gaps

April 15th, 2010 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Aboriginal income gaps)

New research details the impact of education on Aboriginal women

A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that income inequity between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals is entirely eliminated for women with university degrees.

The report singles out the findings on women and education as among the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak study that shows the overall income gap between aboriginals and non-aboriginals is closing at a very slow pace.

Below the Bachelor’s degree level, Aboriginal peoples consistently make far less than the rest of Canadians with the same level of education. (more…)

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