Social Policy Considerations for Community Mental Health Services: A Curriculum Module Integrating Mental Health Research

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Mosca
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Community Mental Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Community Treatment ◽  
Traditional Service

This curriculum module is designed for use in an undergraduate social policy course. It focuses on mental health policy and its impact on services to the chronic mentally ill in the community. Relevant mental health research is integrated in order to provide a basis for comparing traditional service interventions with alternative approaches. Learning outcomes that are critical to social policy analysis are addressed to include: problem identification and analysis; policy reform proposals; implementation concerns; and assessment. These components of social policy are applied to mental health services by specifically comparing family-aided assertive community treatment to longstanding approaches associated with deinstitutionalization.

scholarly journals Narratives of reform: the Mental Health Act (MHA) in England and Wales from the 1983 MHA to the Wessley Review (2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 217-226
Author(s):  
Ian Cummins
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Community Mental Health Services ◽  
Community Treatment ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mental Health Legislation ◽  
Health Legislation

Purpose This paper aims to examine reform of mental health legislation in England and Wales. It covers the period from the introduction of the 1983 MHA to the proposed reforms outlined in the Wessley Review that was published in December 2018. Design/methodology/approach This is a literature-based project. Findings Reform of the mental health legislation reflects two potentially conflicting strands. One is the state’s power to incarcerate the “mad”, and the other is the move to protect the civil rights of those who are subject to such legislation. The failures to development adequately funded community-based mental health services and a series of inquiries in the 1990s led to the introduction of Community Treatment Orders in the 2007 reform of the MHA. Research limitations/implications The development of mental health policy has seen a shift towards more coercive approaches in mental health. Practical implications The successful reform of the MHA can only be accomplished alongside investment in community mental health services. Originality/value The paper highlights the tensions between the factors that contribute to mental health legislation reform.

The ghettoization of persons with severe mental illnesses

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Laura Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline the reflections of a person with lived experience of a severe mental illness (SMI) and former peer support worker in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who has also worked for seven years in mental health research. It describes a tendency of resources and services to create ghettos of people with SMIs by failing to support the integration of people with SMIs into the community at large or in exploring options for meaningful, fulfilling occupation, reinforcing social exclusion and ghettoization. Design/methodology/approach This paper shows a reflective and narrative account of personal experiences and observations of the ghettoizing tendency in mental health services. Findings Mental healthcare professionals tend to support people with SMIs in engaging activities within resources for the mentally ill, and not in carrying out activities in the community at large. The range of activities offered is limited, an obstacle to finding meaningful, fulfilling occupation. Harmful psychological effects include self-stigma, low self-esteem and a sense of marginalization, generating a ghettoized mentality. The difficulties encountered in an effort to leave the mental health ghetto are touched on with examples of how to overcome them. Practical implications The need for professional support for social integration of people with SMIs is identified, which could ultimately favor social inclusion of people with SMIs. Originality/value It is written from the perspective of a user and provider of mental health services, who also has seven years’ experience in mental health research.

Mental Health Research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun M. Eack
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental Health Research ◽  
Mental Health And Illness ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Psychosocial Approaches

Mental health research is the study of the causes and correlates of mental health and illness, approaches to improve mental well-being, and the delivery of effective mental health services to those in need. Social workers have been leading researchers in each of these areas of inquiry, and this article provides an overview of the broad field of mental health research, with particular emphasis on the contributions of social work. A biopsychosocial review of research on the correlates of mental health and illness is provided, followed by a synthesis of studies examining pharmacological and psychosocial approaches to improving mental health. Research on mental health services is then presented, with a focus on studies seeking to improve access to quality care and reduce service disparities. Key directions for future mental health research include identifying specific causal predictors of mental illness, improving existing treatments, and disseminating advances to the community.

‘The business end’: Neoliberal policy reforms and biomedical residualism in frontline community mental health practice in England

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rich Moth
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Community Mental Health Services ◽  
Service Users

Mental health policy initiatives in England over the last three decades have led to significant restructuring of statutory service provision. One feature of this has been the reconfiguration of NHS mental health services to align with the requirements of internal and external markets. Based on findings from 12 months’ ethnographic fieldwork within one mainstay of NHS statutory provision, the community mental health team, this paper examines the effects of these neoliberal policy and service reforms on professional practice and conceptualizations of mental distress. The paper begins with an account of the restructuring of the labour process in community mental health services. This utilizes the notion of ‘strenuous welfarism’ to describe an organizational context characterized by escalating performance management, deskilling of professional practice and the intensification of mental health work. Increasingly prominent aspects of managerialism and marketization disrupted attempts by mental health practitioners to sustain supportive and mutual structures with colleagues and engage service users in therapeutic and relationship-based forms of practice. Moreover, organizational processes increasingly recast service users as individual consumers ‘responsibilized’ to manage their own risk or subject to increasingly coercive measures when perceived to have failed to do so. Consequently, biomedical orientations were remobilized in practice in spite of a purported shift in policy discourse towards more socially inclusive approaches. The term ‘biomedical residualism’ is coined to describe this phenomenon. However, instances of ethical professionalism that reflected resistance to these residualized modes of practice were also visible.

Rate of community treatment orders and readmission orders following reconfiguration of community mental health services

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian O’Donoghue ◽  
Lisa Brophy ◽  
Nicholas Owens ◽  
Milana Rasic ◽  
Belinda McCullough ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Community Mental Health Services ◽  
Community Treatment ◽  
Community Treatment Orders
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