Presentation Paper Sample on Designing a Mental Health Needs Assessment Proposal

Explain the health needs assessment and introduce your topic.

Health needs assessment refers to the systematic method used in reviewing the health issues that face the populations across the globe. The health needs assessment is vital for some reasons which include resource allocation, identification of the target population, drafting of the health implementation plan among others. This presentation focuses on designing a mental health needs assessment proposal. Mental health includes the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of an individual. Mental health affects how people think, feel, and act.

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Explain the approaches the mental health.

Issues surrounding the mental health can be approached in four different dimensions which include the optimal health quadrant, the serious mental illness quadrant, the poor mental health quadrant and the no symptoms to mental health quadrant. These approaches focus both on the patient and the healthcare provider. The approaches categorize the patient in any of the four given quadrants considering the status of their mental health.

Identify your target group giving reasons for the choice of your population: victims of depression

Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses in New Zealand. According to the Mental Health Foundation, mental disorders is number three in the leading causes of death. Depression is symptomized by sad mood, loss of interest in activities, weight loss or gain, the inappropriate feeling of guilt, fatigue, suicidal thoughts and difficulty in concentrating. Depression results from a combination of factors such as family factors, personality, medical illness, and drug and alcohol use. Thus, addressing the causes of depression would greatly help in reducing the related deaths.

Identify the aims and objectives of mental health promotion.

The program aims at improving the mental health of the identified population, creating mental health to the community, identifying the causes of mental disorders, lowering the personal and social costs of mental ill-health, reducing risk factors, among others.

The objectives of this mental health promotion intervention program will not be limited to strengthening the abilities of individuals, families, and the community to cope with the daily stressful events, increasing the resilience of the individuals and the community to stress, building a healthy public health policy, strengthening collaborations within the community and many others.

Identify the members of the project team and their roles.

The team will comprise the project manager, the project team members, the project analyst, and the volunteers in the community. The project manager will be responsible for developing a project plan, managing deliverables according to the plan, deciding the methodology used in the project, assigning tasks to project team members among others. The team members will help in meeting the overall project objectives, completing the individual deliverables, providing expertise, working with the community to collect data, among others. The project analyst will be required to analyze the project, collect the requirements for the project, and ensure the project deliverables meet the required objectives among other duties. The sponsor of the project will make the decisions, approve the budget, ensure availability of the resources, and ensure the project goals and objectives are met.

Identify the resources required.

The resources required for the project are staff, investigators, and funds. The staff will be responsible for facilitating the logistics during the project. The investigators will be responsible for collecting data and interacting with the target populations. The funds will be required to facilitate travels, meals, and for purchasing the required accessories.

Outline the health conditions affecting the population.

1. Depression
2. Bullying
3. Family issues
4. Peer relationships
5. Gambling

Identify the priority issues to address.

These include depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and dementia. Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses across the world. It is symptomized by sad mood, loss of interest in activities, weight loss or gain, the inappropriate feeling of guilt, fatigue, suicidal thoughts and difficulty in concentrating. Schizophrenia, on the other hand, is characterized by impaired daily functioning, hallucinations, delusions, and movement disorders. Epilepsy results from the repeated seizures by the abnormal electrical signaling in the brain. Dementia, on the other hand, impairs the memory, thoughts, language, behavior, and judgment leading to loss of brain functions.

Discuss your mental health promotion strategy to address the mental health problem.

This mental health promotion intervention program will make use of the following strategies to address the mental health problem: drawing on health promotion theory to re-conceptualise mental health and illness, making a commitment to explore and value lay understandings of mental health, developing intersectoral alliances aiming to address social and economic inequalities, and validating the participatory methods through evaluation research and development of strategies which are themselves consistent with health promotion principles.

Discuss the mental health promotion plan as per the presentation. Identify and discuss the mental health promotion theories to underpin the plan.

The social cognitive theory and the theory of reasoned action will be fundamental in underpinning the program. The social cognitive theory describes the influence of the experience of an individual, their actions, as well as the environmental factors on the person's health behavior. It provides the opportunity for social support through the use of observation learning, instilling expectations, and self-efficacy. The theory of reasoned action, on the other hand, suggests that the health of a given individual is determined by their intentions to perform a given behavior. Thus, an individual's action is always predicted by their attitude towards the behavior and the subjective norms to the given behavior. These theories are important in identifying the causes of depression among the target group as they focus on the individual experience.

Identify the existing community health services to address the problem.

The existing community health services such as housing services, treatment, peer support and self-help programs, crisis services, and employment services would be vital in solving the existing mental health problem. The housing services will help resettle those victims whose problem result from family issues, the peer support will be used to help understand the causes of depression among the target group, the self-help programs will be critical in helping the victims get back on their feet and indulge in productive activities within the community, crisis services will be used to attend to those who situations have gotten out of hand, and the employment services will help in providing opportunities for recovered individuals.

Explain the involvement of the target group in the planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating the program.

The mental health promotion intervention program will make use of the following strategies to involve the target group in the program: social inclusions such as the Schoolwide social events for children as well as adults for the development of these policies, sports and other physical activities within the community for implementation of the evaluation program, parenting programs in the community setting to evaluate the implemented program, emotional awareness for implementation of the evaluation program, and problem solving skills to plan and develop an effective program.

Identify the potential difficulties that may be encountered while implementing the program.

The potential difficulties that may arise during the implementation of the program include self-esteem, overconfidence, and family loss or break up, physical ill health, abuse, and biases. Self-esteem refers to the value individuals place on themselves. Self-esteem affects self-image and self-worth (Ruggiero, 2008). Overconfidence may also be a problem as most individuals may think highly of themselves making it impossible to interact with them to identify the causes of their depression. Separation from the family members can also be a key factor making it difficult for such individuals to cope up with the program.

Outline and explain how the difficulties will be addressed.

The challenges that might be faced during the implementation of the program will be addressed through the motivation of the team members by encouraging them to work as a team. Teamwork can be achieved by organizing events such as team building, assigning roles, helping team collaboration through meetings where they can share problems, encouraging communication among the team members, among others.

Explain how you will evaluate the program.

The evaluation plan will focus on three key areas which include the health impact, the social impact, and the economic impact. The health impact will be gauged on the incident reduction, an improvement on the quality of life, improvement on the physical health, improvement on the coping life skills, and the betterment of the psychological adjustment. The social impacts will be based on the improvement of the social skills and the attitude of the population. The economic impact will focus on the economic benefits of the program as well as the productivity of the individuals within the community.