Transformative Mental Health Social Work Practice: What, When, and with Whom Do We Learn?

Transformative mental health social work fosters participatory processes that drive emancipatory changes in services and systems, addressing societal barriers to inclusion, equity, and full citizenship. This study explored how transformative practices, aligned with United Nations' calls for reform toward person-centred, rights-based mental health recovery across Canada and Australia, are learned. Using co-operative inquiry, the research captures diverse experiences and knowledge from social work practitioners, managers, students, academics, and family members in a practice research partnership to examine how learning prepares and sustains mental health social workers for transformative practice. Findings revealed an iterative approach to learning in mental health, highlighting the diverse foci of learning (what) at various career stages (when) and the reciprocal nature of learning for and from others in the practice environment (from whom). In this unique context, the study underscored the importance of professional identity resilience.