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Presented by Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Co-Founder of Queer Nature
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Learning Objectives

  1. Gain an understanding of how settler colonialism informed/s the mental health system we have today.
  2. Review theories and definitions of what decolonizing mental health means and how this topic relates to multiple aspects of mental health i.e. academic field, clinical practice, policy creation, etc.
  3. Understand how the demographics of mental health educators and practitioners, as well as the lack of culturally competent education, contribute exclusionary and harmful practices and experiences in mental health fields.
  4. Evaluate your roles and experiences within the discussion of harmful mental health practices and decolonization of mental health.
  5. Understand, through personal anecdote and statistical research, how individuals, groups, and communities have been negatively affected and harmed by the institution of mental health and its practices.
  6. Explore the multi-layer and intersectionality of the decolonization of mental health and other aspects of society and culture i.e. capitalism, public service systems, legislations, etc.
  7. Review the history and evolution of social justice scholars and mental health education.
  8. Review the context of mental health and the decolonization of mental health on a global scale.
  9. Understand the disconnect between mental health theories of support, clinical practice, boundaries, standards, etc. and the real world experiences of clients and clinicians, and the impact that this disconnect has on treatment.
  10. Understand that despite the importance of these discussions, there is no single checklist of goals to achieve decolonization of mental health but instead a multi-layered, long-term process of work to transform our current systems.
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Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd

Co-Founder, Queer Nature
Pinar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd (they/them) is an Indigenous multi-species futurist, mentor, consultant, and eco-philosopher; Co-Founder of Queer Nature, an "organism" stewarding earth-based queer community through ancestral skills, interspecies relations and rites of passage.

Enchanted by the liminal, Pinar is a future transcestor of Wanka Quechua, Turkish and Chinese lineages. A central prayer that guides them is envisioning decolonially-informed queer ancestral-futurism through multi-species accountability and the remediation of human supremacy in the Chthulucene. Their prismatic writing is fed by this prayer and is rooted in multi-gender/multi-cultural/multi-racial parallel realities as a neurodivergent. They are in a lifelong apprenticeship to the ecotone of the riparian systems.

Their relationship with queerness, hybridity, neurodivergence, Indigeneity, and belonging guided their work in developing Queer Ecopsychology with a somatic and depth approach through a decolonial lens. As a survival skills mentor, one of their core missions is to uplift and amplify the brilliant "survival skills" that BIPOC, LGBTQ2SIA+ and other intersectional systemically targeted populations already have in their resilient bodies and stories of survivance.

They were the 2020 recipient of Audubon National Society's National Environmental Champion as well as R.I.S.E. Indigenous 2020 Art and Poetry Fellowship. Pinar is the founder of @indigenousqueers; founding Council Member of Intersectional Environmentalist; trans ambassador of Native Womens Wilderness; and a founding member of Diversify Outdoors coalition. They are also adjunct faculty at the WE Immersion at Weaving Earth and facilitate and design multi-day programs at Colorado College and the University of Colorado Boulder with their other half/co-visionary partner/Co-Founder of Queer Nature, So Sinopoulos-Lloyd.
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