Mental Health America Case Study

Conversely, resources can be accessed through the Provincial Health Services Authority, PHSA. PHSA believes that untreated mental illness can hugely impact employee health and works to support health care professionals, like nurses, to overcome emotional challenges (Provincial Health Services Authority [PHSA], 2017). Through their website, nurses suffering from a psychological injury can access resources such as the free and confidential Employee and Family Assistance Program, EFAP. Not only does EFAP provide Monday to Friday counselling services for employees, but the program also offers Critical Incident Stress Management Services, CISM. This provides 24 hour, 7 days a week triage, consultation and coaching for health care workers experiencing a traumatic event (Employee and Family Assistance Program, 2012). This program is a great tool for nurses and should be utilized whenever necessary.

American history is littered with tails of reform and revolution. Earlier on in America’s young life, revolution included war, struggle for basic human rights and dignity as well as radical tactics taken by the public. As time went on Americans learned that revolution and reform could occur through the government systems that our forefathers had put in place. The battle for human rights has all but ended but the way in which Americans wage war is a different story altogether. Now American’s fight for better public healthcare, equal rights for homosexual individuals and couples, and stricter standards for social welfare programs.

According to the director of national health, “the States have cut $5 billion in mental health services from 2009 to 2012. While also distinguishing at least 4,500 public psychiatric hospital beds.” Decreasing funds for mental health has resulted in an overcrowded population of homeless patients who either spend their time on the streets, in prisons, or in coffins. Overtime, mentally ill patients have nowhere to go, the jail systems are failing to provide proper treatment, and the government has already reduced mental health fundings as it is. It is time to take a stand, and say yes to increasing funds towards the mentally ill and health facilities.

What comes to mind when you think of mentally ill people? Is it depression? Or is it the asylums that “crazy people” are thrown into? What if I were to tell you that that's still a problem? Does having mental illness disclude people from the rest of humanity? Are their rights as Americans taken away from them because of their mental state? Every one in twenty five adults in America have lived with a mental disorder at one point, so why is their treatment not taken seriously?

For the majority of our nation’s history, treatment for those deemed mentally ill was poor at best. Now seen as rather dark and cruel, those suffering from a mental illness were cast away from society. Those admitted were locked away within the confines of an insane asylum, where they were ruthlessly tortured; many never seeing signs of improvement and subsequently never seeing the freedoms that lie beyond the confines of the asylum. Thus it is not hard to believe that as awareness of this treatment spread, civil rights activists took action toward protecting these patients. Patients diagnosed with mental illness were granted the following rights:

D-The patient requested to see this writer, at which this writer agreed. The patient appears worrisome. The patient asked for assistance by this writer to help fill out an application for the probate court to file a custody petition for her grandson. This writer asked the patient if she had asked her DCF worker for help and the patient response was yes. The patient inform this writer that her DCF worker does not help her with anything or even have the answers to her questions regarding to her grandson care. This writer agreed to help the patient as much as possible and struggling urges the patient to have someone at the Probate Court to view the application to file a petition. The patient asked questions to this writer about receving financial assistance for her grandson since the patient needs help with the child basic needs. The patient been using her benefits from the state to care the child and is only

Objectives/Progress: Pt. has discontinued her use of opiates according to the last quarter UDS results, Pt. is now eligible to receive phase 1 take home privileges if she maintain her abstinence. Pt. demonstrated a improvement on her commitments to maintain regular dosing attendance. Also P During this upcoming quater, this writer will meet with pt. to establish rapport and trust. This writer will reinforce the importance of remaining in recovery and to resolve her current legal issues by the next month. Pt. identified her children as a motivational factor to change and to . The counselor told Pt. that he needs to be free from drugs (cocaine) in order for his prescribed medications to work and be more effective. Counselor will help patient understand the importance of restitution to self worth and then help in developing a plan to provide restitution.

In the United States, there are 25% of adults who are diagnosed with a mental illness and it is predicted that 50% of the adult population will develop a mental illness within their lifetime; 8-9% of the adult population in Florida is diagnosed with depression (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). Promotion, awareness, and the availability of mental health services are public health areas in my community that needs attention. The needs of my community are not entirely met, and there are inconsistencies when addressing mental health illness through mental health screenings and routine/follow up appointments. There are some people who are not getting the necessary medical attention, and are therefore are unproductive and unaware of where they can help and what help is actually available to them. The number of adults that report that they have good mental health has decreased since the last Orange County community health assessment of 2007-2010; over 30% of the population ranks their overall mental health as good, fair, or poor, with the severely mentally ill accounting for almost 2400 members of our homeless population (FloridaHealth.gov, 2012). 30 % of the population may seem like a small number when it compares to the other 70 percent of individuals who reported having great to excellent mental health, but I think more can be done to meet the needs of the 30%.

A huge percentage of Americans suffer from various mental illnesses. 1 in 5 adults in the US, or 18.5% of the population, will experience mental illness in a given year (NAMI). With these mental illnesses come so many difficult questions. How can we improve the lives of Americans struggling with mental illnesses? What happens if these Americans become harmful to themselves or others? And how can we help and keep their families involved? The American government as well as several organizations have been trying to tackle these issues. Congressman Tim Murphy created a bill called the Helping Families in Mental Crisis Act (H.R. 2426) that seeks to “fix the nation’s broken

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “1 in 4 adults live with a serious mental illness (Ken).” This means that in American there are almost 62 million people suffering from mental illness (Mayo Clinic). With that being said, only a small portion of the United States’ healthcare budget is used to fund mental health related research and facilities. Sarah Kliff, journalist for the Washington Post, reported, “…about 5.6 percent of the national health-care spending, according to a 2011 paper in the journal Health Affairs (Sarah).” Kliff also expressed that the United States has a budget of $113 billion dollars annually to spend on healthcare. Consequently, that means that only 6.3 billion dollars are spent on mental health issues every year. This is a staggering number consider that roughly 25% of the United States’ population is living with a serious mental illness (Sarah) Due to the large portion of American’s living with serious mental illnesses it directly impacts family communication. To get a better understand on family communication and mental illness this paper will discuss what a mental illness, communication symptoms of mental illness, how to improve mental illness, as well as communicating options for help with your loved one.

Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institutions (SWVMHI) is in the center of town, it offers long-term mental services and acute mental health care. Mount Rogers Community Service Board offers services for mental health, substance abuse, alcohol addiction, and they offer community services for those in need. Other community services include Social Services Department and Cornerstone. All these services are in town and are accessible by public transportation.

This was all a result of Mental Health America and was inspired by the poor mental health of veterans and draftees. The veterans were studied later after experiencing stress during the war and displayed a high incidence of earlier mental health illness. The government had a high population of mentally ill and needed to intervene to eliminate social pathologies. Before the act was passed there was a shortage of mental health professionals; understanding and treatment of the disorder fell behind the increasing number of returning World War II soldiers. Still today there is only one mental health professional per 1000 individuals (Mental Health America,

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) define health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, and emphasis that “there is

Senator Creigh Deeds story is just one of many that end in tragedy because of a mental health system that has failed. While the major proportion of people living with mental illness are not violent, they can become a victim of violence. According to the latest statistics from the American Psychological Association one in five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder, one in twenty-four has a serious mental disorder (SMI), and people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent that people without mental illness (Association, American Psychiatric, 2016). Untreated mental health care is characteristic of the violent crimes that we see happening today. Some of the reasons behind these untreated individuals are the unmet needs of people not having a financial means to pay for services, lack of insurance, knowledge about how to access care, embarrassment about having the need for services, and those that needed care but experienced delays in accessing care (Jones et al., 2014).

Working in the Mental Health field specifically with NCR clients I noticed that the majority of them were men. I became interested in trying to understand possible reasons that men are more prone to committing crimes while psychotic. More specifically I wanted to focus on drug induced psychosis since the clients I worked closely with were recovering addicts, who committed their crimes while using drugs and alcohol.