Session: Voices Unheard: Understanding Psychosis in Intersectionally Marginalized Communities (Society for Social Work and Research 29th Annual Conference)

Psychosis represents one of the highest burden health conditions wordwide, with little progress in outcomes over the past few decades. Despite ongoing efforts in research and clinical practice, disparities persist for marginalized groups in their access to and benefit from psychosis services. There is growing recognition of the importance of including the perspectives and insight of individuals with lived experience of psychosis and those from ethnoracially minoritized populations in addressing these longstanding concerns, yet their participation continues to underscore deeply problematic issues of inclusion. The involvement of individuals with lived experience is often tokenistic and their contributions are gravely under-valued and under-utilized. Research of ethnoracially minoritized groups is routinely undertaken without input from these very group members and, subsequently, the development, implementation, and analysis of this critical research lacks the epistemological awareness to adequately affect needed change.

The proposed symposium intends to center the voices and experiences of individuals that have historically been marginalized in this work. The first presentation will explore issues of inclusion of service users in participatory research methods. The second presentation will address the structural concerns inherent in the meaningful inclusion of peer support workers in early psychosis services. The third and fourth presentations will highlight the perspectives of minoritized individuals from Latine and Asian communities in describing their distinctive experiences with psychosis and unique pathways to and through care. Through the inclusion and amplification of these perspectives, we hope to generate much-needed discourse and movement towards truly equitable psychosis services.