Outsourcing Mental Health Programs: Harms to Public Education and to Students

Melanie Janzen; Christine Mayor; Hafizat Sanni-Annibire

doi:10.53967/cje-rce.6975

Authors

Melanie Janzen The University of Manitoba
Christine Mayor University of Manitoba https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2121-5898
Hafizat Sanni-Annibire University of Manitoba

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53967/cje-rce.6975

Keywords:

outsourcing, privatization, public education, public good, mental health

Abstract

Students are experiencing high levels of stress and mental health distress and are at greater risk of suicide, resulting in calls to provide appropriate mental health supports in schools. In response, provincial governments are outsourcing K–12 mental health supports to private organizations (both non- and for-profit). Through a review of Manitoba education documents, we traced over 50 private organizations recommended by the provincial government and over $8.9 million of public money spent on these programs. Situated within the broader neo-liberal trend of the privatization of public education, we then used a critical policy analysis approach to analyze these programs’ content, explicating the ways in which these outsourced programs endorse the deprofessionalization of the teacher and the self-responsibilization of students while enlisting problematic content. We argue that outsourcing ultimately undermines education as a public good and recommend holding governments accountable, developing research-informed mental health supports, and implementing a critical assessment process when considering outsourcing to private organizations.

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Author Biographies

Melanie Janzen, The University of Manitoba

Dr. Melanie Janzen (she/her) is a professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. She is a settler living and working in Winnipeg, on Treaty One Territory and homeland of the Red River Métis. Melanie’s research uses critical perspectives to explore the inter-related workings of power and discourses and how these affect the experiences of classroom teachers, the ongoing marginalization of children, and the undermining of public education. She is a coauthor of the recently published book, Feeling Obligated: Teaching in Neoliberal Times. Prior to becoming an academic, Melanie was an early years classroom teacher and a learning support teacher.

Christine Mayor, University of Manitoba

Dr. Christine Mayor (she/her) is a white settler born and raised on the island of Bermuda, now living on the traditional territory of the Cree, Anishinaabe, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples and the homeland of the Métis nation also known as Winnipeg, Canada. Christine is an Assistant Professor in the Inner-City Social Work Program in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba. Her critical scholarship focuses on educational equity, anti-racism, trauma, and the role of the arts in healing and organizing. In her professional career, she worked as a drama therapist and trauma therapist, running trauma-centered programming in K-12 schools in Connecticut.

Hafizat Sanni-Annibire, University of Manitoba

Hafizat Sanni-Anibire (she/her) is a PhD student at the University of Manitoba specializing in critical childhood studies and migration. With a background as an early years educator in Nigeria, her research explores how Black African immigrant children navigate identity, belonging, and agency in Canadian school settings. She examines the intersection of race, migration, and childhood, challenging deficit-based narratives and emphasizing children's active role in constructing meaning. Hafizat's work centers children's voices, recognizing them as agents in shaping their social worlds and negotiating identity within complex contexts. Her research is informed by her cross-cultural experiences in Nigeria, Canada, and Saudi Arabia, providing a rich perspective on migration, systemic inequities, and transnational childhoods. Committed to social justice, Hafizat's scholarship is committed to rethinking childhood as a site of agency, possibility, and social transformation and advancing a more just and equitable present and future for young children.

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Outsourcing Mental Health Programs: Harms to Public Education and to Students

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Melanie Janzen, The University of Manitoba

Christine Mayor, University of Manitoba

Hafizat Sanni-Annibire, University of Manitoba

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