What are the links between transformational forms of recovery and intergenerational injustice?

What are the links between transformational forms of recovery and intergenerational injustice? Evidence from different studies.

Mental health problems are often construed as stemming from faulty biological mechanisms that lack meaning or significance for the young people who experience them. However, emerging research shows that young people can derive meaning from mental health challenges and experience transformational forms of recovery when supported by key personal, social, and contextual determinants of health and resilience. These determinants include access to affordable and safe housing, meaningful employment, hope-inspiring mental healthcare, and communities where young people feel welcomed, loved, and supported. Over the past few decades, social, political, and economic trends have gradually eroded the availability of these resources, leaving today’s youth worse off than their parents across multiple metrics. These intergenerational inequities have significant consequences for young people’s mental health and potential for recovery. In this talk, Gerald Jordan will present interdisciplinary, mixed-methods research from his team on how transformational forms of recovery are experienced, how personal and contextual determinants shape this process, and how the growing inaccessibility of these resources impacts young people’s recovery.

About the speaker

Dr. Gerald Jordan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham, where he leads the Reach Collective. He is a member of the Institute for Mental Health and Centre for Urban Wellbeing, and the EDI lead for the Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour. His research seeks to understand how people make meaning from, and grow following a mental health challenge, and how these two outcomes are shaped by larger determinants of health and resilience that are increasingly becoming out of reach for young people. He has been PI on several grants awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Fonds de Recherche Quebec – Sante, and the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and is CO-I on grants awarded by the ESRC and Medical Research Foundation.

This event is hosted by Durham University's Institute for Medical Humanities, led by Angela Woods.

This event is free to attend.

Zoom details will be circulated closer to the event.