Project LETS: Building Peer-Led Mental Health Alternatives on Campus
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.8 • 201 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis".
Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique programme.
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Last fall, the New Haven Register reported that a group of Yale University students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against the university challenging its policies and practices around students with mental health disabilities. But according to our guest, a lack of access to appropriate support, as well as discrimination against students struggling with their mental health, are all too common on American campuses.
Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is the founder and director of the non-profit Project LETS, which stands for Let’s Erase the Stigma. Project LETS is a national grassroots organization and movement focused on creating innovative, peer-led alternatives to our current mental health system. Their work includes peer support and communicative care, political advocacy, organizing, and mutual aid.
Project LETS's mission looks beyond academia, though; led by and for people with lived experience of mental illness/madness, disability, trauma, and neurodivergence, it “seeks to build a world without systems of oppression where non-carceral responses to crises are the norm.” The organization is now active on about 30 college and high school campuses across the country.
Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a 2017 graduate of Brown University with a degree in Medical Anthropology and Contemplative Studies, and was a 2018 Fullbright Scholar. They describe themselves as a "white, queer, non-binary, disabled, neurodivergent care worker who shows up for their communities as a Disability Justice and Mad Liberation educator and organizer, parent, doula, peer supporter, writer, and conflict intervention facilitator."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry and social justice. |
| 0:20.2 | Hello, this is James, and the Madden America podcast this week is sponsored by Drs Rani and Suraj, holistic psychiatry and mental health coaching. |
| 0:29.3 | Are you ready to make a lasting change in your life beyond diagnosis? |
| 0:33.2 | Then join Dr. Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching program named Beyond Diagnosis. |
| 0:39.6 | Get access to one-on-one and group coaching sessions with her, tailored resources, simple |
| 0:44.4 | but powerful practices to shift your state of being, peer support and so much more. |
| 0:49.8 | This unique program starts this March, 202323, so don't wait any longer. |
| 0:55.3 | Start your transformation journey today |
| 0:57.6 | and unlock your full well-being potential. |
| 1:00.8 | To find out more, you can visit their website, |
| 1:03.3 | which is doctors rani suraj.com, |
| 1:06.4 | and I'll spell that for you. |
| 1:07.6 | It's D-R-S-R-A-N-I-S-U-R-A-J.com. And there you'll be able to find more information and |
| 1:15.8 | join this unique program. Okay, and now on to our interview. On November 30th, the New Haven |
| 1:22.6 | Register reported that a group of Yale University students and alumni filed a federal |
| 1:27.0 | lawsuit against the |
| 1:28.1 | university seeking to remedy current policies and practices around students with mental health |
| 1:33.4 | disabilities. The move follows an investigation by the Washington Post on the school's policy of forcing |
| 1:39.3 | leaves of absence on students believed to be suicidal. This problem is not unique to Yale, but the lack of access to appropriate on-campus |
| 1:48.4 | mental health supports and discrimination against students struggling with their mental |
| 1:52.5 | health are all too common at American high schools and colleges, according to our guest. |
| 1:57.8 | Stephanie Lynn Kaufman Tim Kulhu, founder and director of the nonprofit Project |
... |
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