LETsLEAD is a step in the right direction

Pictured above: Meet the first Canadian LETsLEAD class: (L to R) Rachel Cooper, facilitator, Tracey Addison, Sacha Agrawal, facilitator, Catrina Padmore, Sean Patenaude, Rachel Bromberg, Funmi Adeniyi-taiwo, Courtney Young, Kathy Friedman, Pauline Harnum and Claire Bien, facilitator.

By Patrick Callan

The first eight Canadian fellows have graduated from the Lived Experience Transformational Leadership Academy (LETsLEAD).

Designed by the Program for Recovery and Community Health in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, LETsLEAD helps emerging service user leaders gain an understanding of critical issues in health care and to learn and put into practice the key elements of transformational leadership.

The first half of the eight-month course consisted of 10 in-class seminars, videoconferencing with Yale instructors. Fellows explored emerging issues in mental health care systems, as well as the principles of transformational leadership such as appreciative inquiry, partnering with others and developing one’s personal vision. 

In the second part of the course, fellows had the opportunity to participate in a project mentored by senior leaders at CAMH and lived experience leaders within Yale’s network. The goal of the project was for fellows to apply the theory they learned in class to build leadership skills while making service improvements both at CAMH and in the larger mental health care system. 

Courtney Young, a LETsLEAD fellow and Patient Engagement Facilitator at CAMH, developed a journey map with her project partners. 

“We would take a really patient-centred approach to try and measure their process from the CAMH Emergency Department to an inpatient unit and then to the Bridging Clinic to see if there were any pain points along the way and if we can make improvements,” she explains. 

Courtney thought LETsLEAD was a fantastic course and really enjoyed making new connections with other fellows and CAMH leadership. 

“As a CAMH patient I was really interested in getting to know more about the organization,” she says. “I also formed a really tightknit bond with my other fellows. We had lunch together every week before class, talked about our mental health challenges and about points of recovery. It’s been a very supportive and educational program.”

For her project, LETsLEAD fellow Rachel Bromberg is developing a proposal to the City of Toronto to include a peer and clinician crisis team within the city’s emergency services.

“The idea is to have a team of clinicians and peer supports be first responders to mental health crises in the community instead of the police-partnered model that we have now and to have it integrated through calling 911 so that it’s accessible to everyone in Toronto,” she explains. 

Rachel says LETsLEAD was very foundational and she learned a lot about transformational leadership. 

“It’s been very valuable to talk openly about tokenism barriers people with lived experience face and strategies for moving through them,” she says. 

CAMH Psychiatrist Sacha Agrawal, who helped coordinate the course, says it’s easy for clinicians to not see the power and potential of people with lived experience.  

“We typically meet our clients at moments in their lives when things aren’t going that great, and we see them with a clinical lens that emphasizes their challenges rather than their strengths,” he says. “If you take people out of that clinical context and instead invite them into this kind of setting, where they are encouraged to dream big and tap into their passions and support each other along the way, that’s how you get to transformational leadership.” 

Sacha feels we need to do much more of the amazing work that took place in the LETsLEAD course. 

“Time and time again I am reminded of just how much untapped power we have in our midst,” he says. “If we can figure out how to give service users a chance to really lead from their unique perspectives, we will soon see the possibilities for transforming our ability to transform lives.”