[5] Reva Appleby married Bertrand Gerstein on 5 June 1939 at Toronto's Holy Blossom Temple.
[2] Gerstein is credited with leading the shift in Canadian mental health care from a medical model to one focused on healthy, community-based living beyond psychiatric institutions.
While working for the Board of Health Reva continued her research efforts at U of T. In 1947 Dr. Gerstein published a study on Canadian prejudices towards minority groups (1947: Probing Canadian prejudice: a preliminary objective survey) and in 1949 she published a paper on suggestions for extending and updating the Bellevue-Weschler vocabulary response assessment (A suggested method for analyzing and extending the use of Bellevue – Weschler vocabulary response).
Hinks offered Reva a job as the National Director of Program Planning for the Canadian Mental Health Association.
In their 1952 reports, both committees recommended "the development of day nurseries in poor housing areas, even if parents [are] not at work.
Such children brought up in one congested room benefit mentally from the supervised freedom of an all-day nursery."
Reva Gerstein's work for the CMHA and the Welfare Council of Toronto was the start of a long career in mental health advocacy and policy change.
In 1962, Reva was appointed by Premier John Robarts as the first woman member of the Committee on University Affairs (CUA) and served as its chairman from 1972 to 1975.
All the while, Gerstein was creating the center of adolescents she was teaching at U of T's School of Social Work and Nursing, where she emphasized preparing teachers to deal with student's mental health issues.
In 1983 Reva was appointed as the Chair of Mayor Art Eggleton's Action Task Force on Discharged Psychiatric Patients in Toronto.
The final report on the Mayor's action task force on discharged psychiatric patients later dubbed the "Gerstein Report" conceived of bringing together housing needs, support services and physical crisis centers backed up by networks of community workers and traditional hospital help.
[8] As a result of the task force's recommendations, a number of community mental health services were established in Toronto, including the Gerstein Crisis Centre.
In 1997 she was honoured with the Companion of the Order of Canada in recognition for her outstanding work on mental health reform.
Listening to Hitler inspired Reva Gerstein, 102, to become a psychologist who devoted her life to helping the vulnerable.
Retrieved from https://archive.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/honours-desc.asp?lang=e&TypeID=orc&id=3834 President's report for the year ended June 1944: University of Toronto: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.
Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/presidentsreport1944univ/page/104/mode/2up/search/gerstein President's report for the year ended June 1945: University of Toronto: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.
The Development of the Day Treatment Center for Emotionally Disturbed Children at the West end Crèche, Toronto.