A Comparative Analysis of Mental Health Reform: Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, with Kaitlin Di Pierdomenico
This presentation examines the trajectories of mental health reform in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, focusing on how political and institutional contexts within universal healthcare systems have shaped their development. Using a comparative-historical approach, Dr. Kaitlin Di Pierdomenico combines historical institutionalism with critical perspectives from Mad Studies and Postpsychiatry to analyse how institutional configurations influence the design, implementation, and outcomes of mental health policies.
The study investigates the relationship between governance structures, financing and service system designs, and professional regulation and payment, assessing how these dimensions interact with shifting policy and cultural discourses on rights, recovery, and community-based care. Archival research, policy analysis, and input from community service agencies provide the empirical foundation for tracing reform pathways in each country.
Findings highlight how institutional frameworks and historical legacies condition the use of policy levers, producing differences in the scale and pace of reform. This comparative analysis contributes to understanding the interplay between institutional design, policy tools, and mental health reform outcomes, offering insights for the development of equitable and contextually grounded mental health systems.
In preparation for this seminar, Dr. Di Pierdomenico has recommended reading Access and Injustice: An Intersectionality informed Analysis of Victorian Mental Health Policy in Australia, Mental health in Kenya: Tensions between human rights approaches and colonial care, and Governance of mental healthcare: Fragmented accountability.
PDF Copies and citations of recommended readings for this seminar and all others for the semester can be found here.
Speaker Profile
Dr. Kaitlin Di Pierdomenico is a postdoctoral visitor in the Department of Psychology at York University and with DIVERT Mental Health. Her research focuses on mental health equity, examining how governance, funding, regulation, and service system design influence access, quality, and rights in care. Drawing on historical institutionalism, Mad Studies, and Postpsychiatry, she investigates reform processes with an emphasis on person-centered, community-driven approaches. Her work spans topics from mental health reform to digital interventions, with a commitment to building inclusive systems that address the social and structural determinants of health.
Register below and join us on Wednesday, October 1, at 1:00 p.m. ET
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