Mental Health Foundation Australia: Promoting Positive Mental Health In Dandenong

Problem Statement

Health promotion program is series of actions to nurture proper health and welfare. Spreading awareness about good health and wellbeing is a part of such promotional events that includes informing people ways to stay fit and healthy. Promotion of practices and values that influences a community about good health is also a part of health promotional program (Rogers and Pilgrim 2014).

Mental Health Foundation Australia (MHFA) is going to launch a health promotion program that targets to help citizens with mental health problems. This organization is made up of people from every occupation such as people with mental illness and organizations who work for mental illness. Even common public with an interest to serve to the people affected with mental illness can join this organization. This organization was established in 1930 and was a part of different international and national health promotion events. The prime aim of this organization is to make people understand the importance of good health and means to sustain the same (Mhfa.org.au 2017).

This organization is going to launch a health promotional program in Dandenong regarding mental health and the funding requested from the government is of $500,000 that is going to drive the project for 3 years. The general strategy of this program is

• To promote mental health and ways to achieve it.
• To make a collaboration of government, professionals and different health organizations to find interventions.
• Promotion of small organizations, which supports and service the community by educating them.
• recommend new practices to train mental health professionals and
• To mend the gap between people with mental illness and people without it, so that the community reunites.

Positive mental health is a condition that influences people to cope with stressful situations and to realize his strengths and weaknesses. In this state of wellbeing,their work productivity increases and they become able to contribute to the community(Rogers and Pilgrim 2014). However, in dandenong, mental health illness and social isolation are prevailing nowadays. One in every fifth Australian citizen is affected with mental illness.Different culture has different views about mental health hence, depending on the culture every person categorize their mental state and decides the mode of treatment. The mental health issues Dandenong is suffering from in recent times are depression, anxiety, obsession, phobia, eating problems, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Almost every age group is affected with such disorder. However, much traits are visible in the elderly citizens (Slade et al 2014).

Greater Dandenong, which has a population of 164,000 (According to the consensus 2015), is a suburb in Melbourne. In a survey conducted by Victorian Public Health Survey (VPHS), 15.5% of the dandenong resident experienced high psychological distress compared to 11% of the Victorian population (Greaterdandenong.com 2017). Another survey conducted by similar organization highlighted mental health problems of adolescents. Larger proportion of adolescents lack the emotional support to lead their life. According to the mental wellbeing reports in adolescents (2009), 30.6% adolescents were not happy with the quality of their life and within that, 55.3% were not developed in a positive psychological environment(Slade et al 2014). Within preparatory students, 37% were found developmentally vulnerable 12.2% were emotionally vulnerable. the National Drug Strategy Household Survey carried out a survey in 2013 in Greater Dandenong and found that out of 24000 Australians of age group 14 and more were indulged in drug abuses and the percentage of the same were 42%. Even the suicidal rate in this city was comparatively high than others and maximum of this was younger generation(Ddacl.org.au 2017). Following table shows the risk factors of mental health (World health organization 2014).

Background and significance of the problem

Needs assessment is a bunch of strategies to develop any projected intervention or to activate the community action team. It helps the local community to understand different problems related to the issue, risk factors, past examples and future potential. A proper need assessment can help to understand the needs of target community that has not been fulfilled, identify all the risk factors so that the future planning can be done based on those factors and to encourage local participation to help the target community (Healey et al. 2017). From the above table, it is quite evident that these risk factors affects the mental health of the larger population of Greater Dandenong. These factors creates uncomfortable situations for elderly population and hereby affects their social life as well. During the assessment of real needs for this section of people, different papers and research articles have found different interventions (Traylor et al. 2012).

Southwestern healthcare Inc. (2009) conducted a need assessment program with the help of Diehl Evolution and consulting services. The prime aim of this study was to identify the basic needs, strength of those mentally ill people. The time line was from December 2008 to July 2009. Data was collected through personal interviews, surveys and printed questionnaires from selected 72 organization. The basic need, evident after the assessment was need for employees in the mental healthcare providers. However, maximum of the organizations provided help to patients without any delay.

N.E.W. Mental Health Connection (2015) did another mental health need assessment. Different qualitative and qualitative methods were used to conduct the need assessment such as referral surveys, public survey, consumer survey and these were completely from the consumer’s point of view. Around 291 clients contributed in this survey and identified different risk factors associated with their mental illness. Maximum number of consumers were educated up to high school level and 32% had college level education. Employment was also a risk factor as only 34% were full-time employees and the amount of unemployed and disables were 12% and 22% respectively. Poverty was an issue for mental illness as only 54% of total consumer has annual household income of $35,000 or below. (Need to write more).

The prime vision of the mental health service program to understand the problems faced by the consumers and the approach of the service providers to achieve the desired goal and outcomes for such disorder. Mental health includes different aspects of human behavior like emotional, behavioral, socio-emotional and so on (DiClemente, Hansen and Ponton 2013). Regardless of these aspects, there should a compact prevention oriented healthy approach to deal with it. Vision of this program includes:

• To understand the mental state of the patient and the families as those issues are affecting their mental health. It can be achieved by applying different modern interventions for mentally ill patients such as psychotherapy, psycho-education and psychodynamic clinical care (Aston and Coffey 2012).
• To be partners with other organizations or institutes that works in the goodwill of such mental illness (Slade et al. 2014).
• Build a general understanding for mental health. In spite of living in a postmodern world, mental illness is a niche and people generally avoid talking about it. Therefore, it is so important to build a common understanding just by talking about it in open forums (Dudley, Silove and Gate 2012).
• Arranging effective and cohesive mental health consultation is an important vision for mental program. It is important for consultants to team up with paid programs and charitable trusts to service mentally ill people. It should be noted that consult a trainer during mental illness is advisable but not important (Mc.Gorry, Bates and Birchwood 2013).
• Roles of families and care providing administrations is another vision, as their support is mandatory for while recovering from the illness. Program will include the families of these mentally ill people and will share all the intervention, which requires the special assistance from the family members (Townsend 2014).

The goals of this mental illness health program are:

• Utilize the elementary skills and knowledge of local volunteers as well as trained personnel to engage and team up with clients rather patients and their families as well. This will help to apply the needed interventions for well-being of such clients (Barry et al. 2013).
• Understand the risk factor (geographical or social) for people of Greater Dandenong and provide support to solve such situations (Morse et al. 2012).
• Establish the facts regarding the problems one face while going through mental illness. Furthermore, the risk factors associated to this such as financial strain, improper access to service, and social stigma will be discussed. It will help people to get proper medication as per their human rights (Thornicroft and Patel 2014).
• To spread the awareness in the mentally healthy community so that they understand the value of it and take important steps to stay healthy in future as well.

The objectives of this health promotion program as follows:

• To understand the mental health trends through surveys and personal interactions. This need to be done both on state and national level.
• To illustrate and identify the risk factors that affects the mental health of elderly people and provide relevant counselling as a treatment (Videbeck 2013).
• To develop counsellors who can apply knowledge and cultural competence to treat the mentally ill patient. He/she should be act with perfection in groups or individual sessions based on any issue. The issue can be emotional, social, personal and professional or educational (Fortinash and Worret 2014).
• To provide a platform to speak and share all the issue that are affecting the mental health of elderly persons. Furthermore, to do so, proper assessment tools can also be utilized (Francis et al. 2012).

According to Naidoo and Wills (2016), theBEATTIE model for the strategies of mental health promotion program is as follows:  

Health persuasionfocuses on the strategies to overcome mental stress. The elderly people will be provided with a training including skills to overcome the mental illness. These skills will include some sports or debates or something the training group is interested in. Through these strategies, the communication between communities will be encouraged and people will be able to share their problems. Physical exercise is another way to develop healthy habits in depressed people, as it will help them to spend time with themselves and sometimes in a group (Wahlbeck 2015).

Local needs assessment data

Strategies for legislative actions includes government amendments. As the literature, review points out poverty as one of the major source for mental illness, through legislative action the organization will ask the government to set up free mental health checkup and counselling campaigns. It will allow every section of the community from Greater dandenong to avail the service of trainer practitioners. The organization will ask the government to mend some rules so that mentally ill patients can avail the healthcare without any delay and more government hospitals can be formed in the greater dandenong municipality (Neiger et al. 2012).

The personal counselling strategies include counselling session either individual sessions or group sessions from an experienced general physician or mental health trainer. This session will be arranged with the help of Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or government organizations.

Community development strategies include public advertisements or campaigns so that the perception of mental illness can be changed, in such condition more and more people will volunteer to help the mentally ill section and communication will be encouraged. Social gatherings will be arranged through the help of sports or other cultural events. Hence, people will be able to communicate. This is an important intervention as people will be able to share their problems with each other (Barry et al. 2013).

Through this mental health campaign, the organization will directly communicate with more than 300,000 people of Greater Dandenong. It is an estimation, as the population according to consensus is 164,000 in the year 2015. Hence, the population in 2017 will be higher. The partner organizations will also take part in this program. Hence, repetition of population is estimated around 80,000. According to the Beattie-model strategies, the community development will reach out to 50,000 people including volunteers and practitioners. The legislative action will reach to 10,000 legislative workers who will be asking the government to amend their rules. Training and personal counselling will be arranged in every section of the city hence, maximum amount of people will be reached through these ways. Health persuasion will be done through advertisements and social media or personal interaction. Through internet and social media about 10,000 people will be connected. This is estimated according to the social media pages and events of the organization.

As the organization, MHFA has a glorious history in helping national and international people, more small governmental and NGOs will be joining the promotional campaign. This will help to arrange places in every corner of the city for personal interviews and skill training sessions. The local government hospitals will be contacted to arrange mental health check-up sessions. The fund granted will help to arrange mobile camps to advertise and inform the community about the campaign. The hospitals that are going to be partners are Dandenong hospital and great eastern hospital for free medical check-ups. Further pubic community halls are other government places can be taken for social gatherings and skill development sessions.

The Dandenong hospital and great eastern hospital is known to carry out health intervention campaigns either paid or non-paid in the locality. The campaigns are inclusive of mental health check-ups and skills to overcome such situation. However, a detailed personal counselling session or community communication was lacking. The prime aim of this promotional camp driven by MHFA will be carry out Advertisements and social campaigns to educate people about healthy lifestyle so that the reason of mental illness can be removed from the roots. The risk factors like poverty, communication gaps; Lack of education, family stress and so on can only be eliminated by communication within communities. Hence, this promotional program will target to bridge all the gaps and restart a healthy communication within the society. The secondary aim will be to change the perception of people about mental illness. This will be achieved by allowing self- volunteers in this program to build respectful relationships.

Project summary

The success measure is divided in two categories such as process measure and impact measure. The process measure includes data collection. The number of general physicians and trainers hired in training, the amount of group or individual training arranged by practitioners, the number of brochures distributed or the number of campaigns launched are measures of this assessment. Even the number of visitors of website, online portals are counted in this section.

The Impact measures include surveys and feedbacks collected through these years. First data is collected on the completion of first year. Furthermore, data is being collected in mid program and after the completion of all three years as well. Survey also includes the number of recovered patients after three years. All the records are reviewed after the completion of the promotional program.

After this three yearlong promotional campaign regarding mental health, the organization is going to establish a strong connection with the common people and healthcare system. People will be able to maintain their healthy habits after the completion of three year and the communication between communities will help them to share their problems as well. After implementing the legislative amendments in the healthcare system, poor citizens will be able to avail quality healthcare from renowned hospitals and established physicians. Social collaboration will help to change the mental illness perception and mentally ill patients will be able to seek treatment easily with the help of their families.     

The data of budgets for all the three-year’s promotional campaigns has been put up through the following table:

After completion of this mental health promotional project, I was educated to so many aspects of promotional strategies that I might be using in future to address more problems. The strategies I used in this promotional event was of three aspects: social, legislative and personal. According to me, strategies to change the individual’s perception of good or bad health is the strongest of all. Legislative action can allow the institutes to organize paid or non-paid camps for mental health check-ups or treatments. However, if the person is unwilling to apply changes in his/her life these acts or laws cannot force them visit hospital. Educating the person the benefits of good mental health and disadvantages of bad mental health will change the perception of that patient and will force them to avail mental health check-ups. Planning and developing strategies for this assignment helped me to understand the key aspects to arrange a promotional campaign. Furthermore, through this project I understood about the risk factors and social responsibilities of mental illness. I understood that communication is the only way that can help each member of community to overcome any stressful situation. Grant experience of this project will help me to communicate with higher institutes, as the approach helped me to grant funds for this project is going to help me in future as well. 

References

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