There are many ways to support wellness:

• People may have different cultural and spiritual practices that promote wellness that should be respected, encouraged and allowed to be engaged in. These practices and beliefs should not be pathologized; instead, they should be supported.

• People with lived experience reported that lack of alternatives hindered their wellness. Everyone has their own experience, their own ways of healing, and their own ideas of wellness. Forcing everyone into a single type of treatment without having alternatives that may better support them does not support their health, it forces compliance that may instead be traumatic.

• People with lived experience want nature incorporated in treatment in some way. A lack of time outside or connection with nature not only impedes varying cultural practices, but it also makes treatment feel punitive instead of healing. We often encourage people to go outside for their mental wellness, so why is something like this only provided as a reward, if it’s provided at all?

  • Many people with lived experience in the project wanted to see accessing nature to support wellness encouraged instead of using as a reward for compliance that must be earned.

Many things beyond the hospital are required to support wellness:

• People with lived experience who participated in the project wanted to see access to therapeutic counselling, not just a psychiatrist. They reported that frequently they had no counselling access, only pills and a psychiatrist.

• There is not enough resources overall, both inside and out of involuntary treatment.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project reported trauma-informed services are needed.

• The mental health system must understand that separating people from community and cultural practices, with limited or no way to connect, does not support wellness.

• Some Illuminating Journeys project participants found that the training workers had seemed to prioritize refocusing the patients instead of listening to them. Having someone listen made all the difference.

• The mental health system needs to encourage keeping the whole person in mind instead of treating people as parts of a checklist. More supportive listening from health care workers would help support this.

Tied into holistic care, mental health treatment must support a person’s humanity. Some of the practices that undermines the humanity of participants included the use of seclusion, physical restraints, silence or very little communication, and keeping communication purely clinical.

• Seclusion does not help healing and leads to trauma. Several groups, including the UN, have stated that seclusion should never be used so why is it still allowed? It should be written into the law that it is not allowed.

• Treatment should not be punitive. When someone needs help, punishment does the opposite.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project want to see an end to the use of pathologizing and stigmatizing language. It does not help health care workers see people as human beings, it removes compassion, and it can negatively impact how people perceive their own experience. Pathologizing language tends to be deficit-focused and leads to people being seen only as their as their label or diagnoses and not as a whole person. Everyone is different, so the same label will not apply in the same way to every person. These labels also follow people through their medical records, which can impact future treatment and interactions within the health system.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project reported cold treatment from nurses; they seemed to be taught not to talk to the patients unless it was necessary for treatment. This led to participants feeling like no one was listening.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project want to see health care workers reflect on the power they have during every moment of detention and involuntary treatment. Workers can counteract this by listening to and centering the person in their own treatment.

People should have a say in their treatment as much as possible.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project found they had no way to advocate for alternative treatments or other services that would support their wellness.

• They reported wanting a person’s rights to be explained in an understandable way based on the individual's communication needs so they know what their options are.

• The anticipated length of detention should be communicated as clearly as possible, not left up in the air. The uncertainty does not support wellness in a situation already filled with so many unknowns.

• Health care workers should listen and believe people when they say a form of treatment is harming them.

• Treatment and treatment decisions must centre the individual.

• Individuals should be empowered to have choice in their treatment.

• People with lived experience who participated in the project want to see a system where individuals have a say in the power to appoint someone else to be in charge of their treatment decisions if they are not in a place to make those decisions themselves during involuntary treatment. People in the individual's life will know them better than a healthcare worker who just met them.

Lived experience experts who participated in the project called for other ways of supporting people that do not involve police. Police aren't trained in mental health care and can be incredibly triggering for many people, which does not help when already in an emotionally-heightened state.