Beyond Blue Is An Australian

While reading the book, the reader’s emotion was inspired to make changes in the mental health system and promote social justice. As a reader, Earley’s objective to educate the reader to embark on a social movement one person at time was achieved. Earley’s example on how to challenge the system one person at a time, offered the reader a blueprint on mental health education and policy change.

One of most significant policy directions for Blueprint II is to respond more effectively and earlier in addiction, behavioural and mental health issues (Mental Health Commission, 2012). Their method is to use a ‘life course’ approach, which covers eight different stages and ages in people’s lives where there is an opportunity to make a positive impact by responding early (Mental Health Commission, 2012). For example, for older adults the effective response would be to promote physical exercise programmes, home visits, social support activities, volunteering as well as attending to their spiritual needs. Early intervention is not only effective in improving an older adult’s well being, it also decreases the future demand for services (Mental

The mental health intervention and prevention focus impacts the quality of life. The lack of assessment and underreporting of depression results in lower quality of life and increases disease mortality (Stoop, et al., 2015). Stoop, et al., report (2015) purposed the solution to the lack of mental health care is to incorporate “stepped care intervention”. The report asserts that depression is not recognized by the majority of health care providers as well as not reported by those that do recognize it. Furthermore, the report asserts that “stepped care intervention” is effective therapeutically and financially. The method calls for screening, intervention of education and therapy, followed by continued monitoring (Stoop et al., 2015). Limitation in the method are lack of participation attributed to stigma of mental illness but the effect size of decreased depression shows promise (Stoop et al.,

This source conveys the message of ensuring safe care transitions. Whereby innovative methods are created for suicide attempts when one goes through this transitions which reduce suicide risk and creates a smooth and uninterrupted care transition from one setting to another. It tells us that in order to ensure suicide risk continuity it is important to remove barriers to scheduling a patients follow up appointments. It creates strategies such as a warm hand off, rapid referral, caring contacts and other bridging strategies.

Mental illness is as ruthless as it is unforgiving. Those who are victims to it often are unnoticed and feel shamed for existing under its control. Depression is a disease which, according to the Black Dog Institute, affects one in seven Australians in their lifetime, but it is one which fails to be successfully addressed in society, plausibly due to the prevalence of stigmatisation. The stigma associated with mental illness often prevents people from seeking professional treatment and while mental health activists and professionals promote the stigma of mental illness to be one which is diminishing in society, it still remains a condition with extremely concerning repercussions.

Mind Matters/Beyond Blue are programs based on mental health. There are different forms of mental health such as anxiety, depression, suicide, self-harm and self-injury, pregnancy and early parenthood and grief and loss. The program helps to build resilience and helps to achieve social adjustment.

In addition, for patients who are being treated for mental health problems or for those patients who I may suspect as being suicidal, I can work on gradually leading the patient to talk about their suicidality in order to get them to open up and gain their trust (Bryan & Rudd, 2006). For patients who have show suicidal thoughts or ideation in the past, I will work on treating the suicide as the behavior to change instead of focusing just on any comorbid mental health disorders (M. Class 4/10). I will focus on getting to know my patients better and the factors that have lead them to where they are in life. In order to help them the most, I will need to know their drivers and in order to do that, I will need to build rapport with them, so that they share with me. We will also work to build their coping skills, because I know how hard it can be to figure out coping mechanisms on your own especially when you are dealing with a crisis (M. Class

In spite of the increasing rate of suicide, suicide is preventable. The Control Center for Disease Control and Prevention use a four- step approach to prevent and to educate the public on mental health issues. The four-steps consist of defining the problem and the risk, then developing prevention strategies and ensuring widespread adoption. With this intention, to reach the target of 10.2 set by Healthy People 2020 it is important to include public health intervention such as starting a campaign for opening the doors to talk about

Medications and wellness for depression, alcoholism and PMDD grace our living rooms every day, all day. In the late 90s more and more advertisements for medications to treat depression were allowed to run to try and “de-stigmatize” seeking help for mental illness. “Ask your doctor”, “break free from depression”, follow Karin’s story on Abilify.com; these tactics were to help the viewer at home identify with the illness so they may begin to educate themselves (Stresing, 2010). Though this breaking down of barriers and giving patients courage to take the first step in seeking treatment is, and has been, widely accepted and motivating, it has excluded and sustained the social distance of more serious illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar and multiple personality disorders to name a few.

A national strategy for promoting mental wellbeing and mental health is No Health Without Mental Health.

However, CEO of Beyondblue, Dr. Jane Burns, and Psychologist, Michael Carr-Gregg, argued, “Discussing suicide is just increasing the risk of suicide” (Carr-Gregg 2003 para. 8).

This week clinical I felt better prepared than I did with my first week. I was able to focus a lot more on interpersonal skills and develop therapeutic relationship with my patients. In terms of Mental Status Examination (MSE), this assessment provided me with a helpful base of information from which to observe changes, progress, and monitor risks. Especially, suicide risk assessment is a gateway to patient treatment and management. The purpose of suicide risk assessment is to identify treatable and modifiable risks and protective factors that inform the patient’s treatment and safety management requirements. I got insight into how important it is to document suicide risk assessments with sufficient information. Documentation of suicide risk assessments facilitates continuity of care and promotes communication between staff members across changing shifts. It is easy for suicidal patients to “fall through the cracks” of a busy psychiatric unit that has rapid patient turnover of admissions and discharges, and mostly during shift change. Asking question such as “What is your view of the future?” or “Do you think things will get better or worse?” helped me to elicit important information regarding patients suicidal ideation. Additionally, how my patients expressed their hope about the future assisted me to identify, prioritize, and integrate risk and protective factors into an overall assessment of the patient’s suicide risk and include in MSE.

Contemporary Challenges in Mental Health Care Provision and Management 2 B73M20 Cohort 09/09 Student ID: 20328

Mental illness stigma prohibits people from getting the treatment they need, as a result suicide is highly prevalent among untreated sufferers.An instance in which this can be seen is in the statics of the individuals who commit suicide. According to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, because of stigma around mental illness, “90% of individuals who die by suicide [had an] untreated mental illness”. Since a large majority of the individuals who do commit suicide do have an untreated mental illness, it can be seen that stigma around mental illness is a very common occurrences barring people from getting the help they need. This shows that reducing stigma around mental health would save a large percentage of people from committing suicide and also allow them to feel as if they can seek professional treatment.

A strong case can be made for investing in mental health, whether to enhance individual and world wellbeing, improve life span, or even to enable people living with mental illnesses to have a better quality of life. Mental health problems account for a quarter of all ill health yet they receive less than 6% of all health research funding, people with these health conditions usually experience poor access to help services and lower quality care than those with physical health problems. Addressing mental and physical health needs together would be more cost effective for the NHS and would benefit the increasing numbers of people dealing with untreated mental illness.