Embedding Authentic and Effective Awareness About Mental Health in Pre-Service Teacher Training

The chapter examines the urgent need for pre-service teacher training programs to integrate content on mental health. In the current neo-liberal context, there is increasing pressure on universities to streamline and shorten these programs, when in fact there might be a need to add content to their existing structure. Developing pre-service teachers' awareness around student mental health is a pressing need but one campuses are usually reluctant to address when it may represent a widening of their scope. The chapter analyzes phenomenological data collected by the author around his lived experience of delivering a course on mental health within a Canadian pre-service teacher training program. It examines the complex, rich, and diverse outcomes that are achieved (1) on teacher candidates' approaches to inclusion, (2) on their ability to navigate their own mental health issues, and (3) more widely on their willingness to embrace social model approaches to disability. The chapter examines the repercussions of this reflection on the transformation of pre-service teacher programs.