University Research Professor

Full Professor 

School of Social Work
St. John's College
Memorial University 
St. John's, NL A1C 5S7

Phone: 709-864-2555
Office: J-4005
Email: blefrancois@mun.ca

Dr. B.A. LeFrançois is a University Research Professor and a poet, whose research and scholarship focusses on the psychiatrization of children, mad community praxes, the ethics of care - including anti-sanist and anti-racist care work within research - as well as abolitionist/anarchist prefigurative politics. Dr. LeFrançois has been engaging in critical pedagogy from mad studies and critical mental health perspectives for the past 30 years, and has published widely on these and related topics. Dr. LeFrançois’ scholarly work has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Polish and French.

Holder of the 2023 Priscila Uppal Memorial Award for Poetry, Dr. LeFrançois’ poems can be read in Canthius: Feminism & Literary Arts, Women & Environments International (WEI), and other scholarly and creative venues.

Dr. LeFrançois will consider supervising new PhD students and MSW thesis students with interests in the areas of critical childhood studies, mad studies, harm reduction, trauma-informed care work and critical disability studies.

Recent Publications (since 2020):

Gorman, R. and LeFrançois, B.A. (forthcoming in 2027). Mad Studies. In B.M.Z. Cohen (Ed.). Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health, Second Edition. London: Routledge.

Abdillahi, I, Reaume, G, LeFrançois, B.A., and Menzies, R. (forthcoming in 2026). Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies, Second Edition.  Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Inc.

Reaume, G., LeFrançois, B.A., & Abdillahi, I. (forthcoming in 2026). Reinforcing mad studies: An introduction to this second edition. In I. Abdillahi, G. Reaume, B.A. LeFrançois, & R. Menzies (Eds.). Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies, Second Edition.  Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Inc.

LeFrançois, B.A. (forthcoming in 2026). Abolition. In I. Abdillahi, G. Reaume, B.A. LeFrançois, & R. Menzies (Eds.). Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies, Second Edition.  Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Inc.

LeFrançois, B.A. (2026). Justicia epistémica y enuentros violentos en la investigación. (Spanish translation of Epistemic Justice and the Violent Research Encounter, academic conference paper, at the Mad Pasts, Mad Presence conference, 28-29 April, University of Victoria, B.C.). Lokapedia: Cultura loca y feminismo. https://www.lalokapedia.com/post/justicia-epistemica-encuentros-violentos-investigacion

Mills, C. & LeFrançois, B.A. (2025). Child as metaphor: Racism, colonialism & psy-governance. In B. Lewis, A. Alisha & J. Russel (Eds.). Mad Studies Reader: Interdisciplinary Innovations in Mental Health. New York: Routledge.

LeFrançois, B.A. (2024) [untitled]. Canthius: Feminism & Literary Arts, 14, 8.

LeFrançois, B.A. (2023). Did I ever tell you, Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador. 

LeFrançois, B.A. and Voronka, J. (2022). Mad Epistemologies and Maddening the Ethics of Knowledge Production. In T. Macias (Ed.). Un/Ethical Un/Knowing: Ethical Reflections on Methodology and Politics in Social Science Research. (Chapter 6, pp.105-130). Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Inc.

Cranford, J.M. & LeFrançois, B.A., (2022). Mad studies is maddening social work. Issues in Social Work, 27 (3), 69-84.

Armstrong, V.E. and LeFrançois, B.A. (2022). Interrogating mad studies in the academy: Bridging the community/academy divide. In P. Beresford, K. Boxall and J. Russo (Eds.). Routledge Handbook of Mad Studies. London: Routledge.

Shaikh, S.S., LeFrançois, B.A. and Macias, T. (2022). Critical Social Work Praxis. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

LeFrançois, B.A. (2022). Social Anarchist Social Work.  In S.S. Shaikh B.A. LeFrançois & T Macias (Eds.). Social Work Theory and Praxis (Chapter 44, pp497-514). Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

LeFrançois, B.A., Macias, T. & Shaikh, S.S. (2022). Critical Social Work Praxis: An introduction. In S.S. Shaikh, B.A. LeFrançois & T. Macias (Eds.). Social Work Theory and Praxis (Chapter 1, pp1-10). Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

LeFrançois, B.A. and Peddle, C. (2022). Mad studies, mad theory.  In S.S. Shaikh, B.A LeFrançois & T. Macias (Eds.).  Social Work Theory and Praxis. (Chapter 41, pp463-476). Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

Gorman, R. & LeFrançois, B.A. (2020). Estudios Locos. Lokapedia: Cultura loca y feminismo. https://www.lalokapedia.com/post/estudios-locos-un-texto-de-rachel-gorman-y-brenda-a-lefran%C3%A7ois

da Silveira Gorman, R. and LeFrançois, B.A. (2020, ongoing rolling publication). Section Editors. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Critical Perspectives on Mental Health.

LeFrançois, B.A. (2020). Psychiatrising children. In V. Cooper & N. Holford (Eds.). Exploring Childhood and Youth. London: Routledge.

van Daalen-Smith, C., LeFrançois, B.A. & MacPherson-Mayor, D. (2020). Promising policies, ambiguous practices: An exploration of the status of children in Canadian health care settings. In T. Waldock (Ed.). A Question of Commitment: The Status of Children in Canada, Second Edition, (Chapter 4, pp55-85). Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.