Join us for a powerful conversation with Julia Read, a PhD candidate at the Lyle S. Hallman School of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University.
Julia’s research and clinical practice are transforming how peer work is understood, substance use, and mental health. Julia brings together lived/living experience, clinical insight, and academic rigour to challenge biomedical dominance and highlight the invaluable expertise of people who’ve been psychiatrized, diagnosed, or criminalized as “addicts.”
Her upcoming talk will explore how Peer Specialists working in substance use health systems navigate exploitation, isolation, and co-optation within both abstinence-based and harm reduction environments, and what transformative, justice-oriented peer work can look like instead. Julia’s approach, grounded in relational accountability, reciprocity, and community-based methodologies, reimagines how we build knowledge and support healing within substance use health and mental health care.
When: Thursday, November 13th – 12 pm ET (9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 1 pm AT, 1:30 NL)