The professional regulation of madness in nursing and social work

Abstract

This chapter problematizes the professional regulation of madness for social workers, social service workers and nurses in the Canadian province of Ontario. Despite province-wide policy on accommodation and human rights law, experiences of sanism, mental health profiling, surveillance and discipline are common. Informed by institutional ethnography, critical disability and Mad Studies, this chapter reports on how social workers, social service workers and nurses are treated by their employers and regulatory colleges when deemed ‘unfit to practice’, even without complaint from the public. Charting the arc of these disciplinary and/or discriminatory experiences, this chapter demonstrates how they begin, how they escalate and how they affect wellbeing, confidence, careers and futures. It concludes with a discussion of epistemic injustice, a problematization of ‘public safety’ and next steps for research and practice.