Last Wednesday we met Val Resh, who shared her story on consent to treatment at our workshop on the 10th and 11th of January this year. Today our post takes us to Canada to meet Roxanne Mykitiuk an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Roxanne will respond to Reshma’s story in a co-authored chapter in the project’s final edited collection.

My name is Roxanne Mykitiuk.

I am from Canada.

I speak English and a tiny bit of French.

I have experience using short films, plays and narrative to change perceptions of disability.  I run a program for law students advocating for disability rights, equality and justice and I write about a range of disability justice issues.

I am interested in stories about consent to treatment and healthcare generally, consent to sex and personal relationships.

My 7 word autobiography is: adventurous, curious, collaborative, social justice seeking mom.

I joined the VOICES project because it provided an amazing opportunity to work collaboratively with people from around the world to hear and tell their stories about the concrete circumstances within which legal capacity is denied, the effects of this on their lives and to re-envision other possibilities.

What was your favourite part of the first workshop?

My favourite part of the first workshop was meeting individually with storytellers and getting to know them better one on one. I’m so happy that we had opportunities in our working sessions to have individual conversations with each storyteller and from there, we were paired with a few with whom we had overlapping areas of interest and given an opportunity to explore our connections and further develop a relationship.  This was fantastic!

What are you hoping to learn from the project?

Through participating in this project I’m hoping to learn more about how supported decision making can work concretely in different contexts, so that the experience on the ground can be used to inform legal and policy change.