You are working for a local community-based organisation that supports individuals not in education, employment or training, usually as a result of mental illness. Two of the priorities of the organisation are to reduce the incidence of reported mental illness and to increase the percentage of members of the community remaining in education, employment or training for at least one year. Much of the focus of the organisation to date in terms of health promotion and prevention has been on diet and exercise.
The organisation has found that the majority of the challenges are stress/mental illness related, and individuals feel they are not in control of their lives. They have launched a new campaign, aiming to promote mental health and wellbeing using a variety of strategies, including education, promotional materials and social media.
To facilitate the new campaign you have to design an interactive and engaging educational handbook that can be used by the social and community workers to support health promotion and prevention work. The handbook must explore the strategies that can be used to promote positive mental health in groups the social and community workers work with, as well as developing an understanding of protecting their own mental health while being employed in the social and community work sector.
The educational handbook must be divided into four chapters covering the sections mentioned below.
- Chapter 1- Mental Health Awareness
You must design an informative chapter to introduce social and community workers to the topic of mental wellbeing.
- a) Evaluate the importance of positive mental health and also assess the impact of a range of social and psychological factors on individual’s mental health and wellbeing.
- b) Analyse the relationship between the impact of factors affecting mental health and wellbeing and the characteristics of positive mental health in individuals. Support your answer with a critical comparison of different definitions of health in terms of their assessment of the relationship between mental and physical health and wellbeing.
- Chapter 2:- Managing Mental Wellbeing through Early Intervention.
This section of the book must be covering a range of practical tools and techniques to recognize the value of early interventions in promoting positive mental health.
- Classify the early warning signs of mental distress and suggest action that can be taken by the social and community workers in addressing the early warning signs of mental stress in individuals.
- b) Review the significance of early experiences in childhood for mental health and analyse the potential impact of early intervention on individual’s mental health and wellbeing. (You can use relevant case studies and research findings to explain this to your readers)
- Chapter 3-Train the reader-Promote Mental Wellbeing.
This chapter must be envisioned to build social and community workers confidence to offer appropriate and valuable interventions to people suffering from mental distress in the community.
- Critically review the potential benefits and limitations of the use of different approaches to promoting mental health and wellbeing, using examples from own practice. Make sure you propose the interventions that can be used to promote healthy methods to cope with stress for different individuals.
- Critically appraise either a local or national strategy that aims to promote mental wellbeing in a specific group within the population. Also justify in details the strategies that can be used to build resilience in individuals not in education, employment or training.
- Chapter 4-Mental Health First Aid.
The last chapter of this handbook must summarize the importance of workers own mental health and wellbeing of colleagues or other individuals receiving support.
- a) Examine in details how workplaces in the social or community care sector can support an individual worker to maintain or improve their own mental health and wellbeing. Support your answer with an action plan or strategy that will aid the practitioner in social or community work to sustain and enrich own mental health and wellbeing.
- b) Analyse the impact on service provisions of policies and processes that contribute to the promotion of mental health and wellbeing of workers in a specific social or community work setting and enlist the impact of a social or community workers own mental health and wellbeing on colleagues, services provision and individuals receiving support.
You must make sure that you read the assignment brief carefully. Try to be creative as much as possible. Add case studies wherever required, and make sure you attach the links of the ted talks, videos, podcasts etc. that you intent to use for the participants of your workshop.
Recommended resources:-
BÄHRER-KOHLER, S. and CAROD-ARTAL, F.J. (2017) (Eds.). Global Mental Health: Prevention and Promotion. New York: Springer
BROWN, J.S., LEARMONTH, A.M. and MACKERETH, C.J. (2014) Promoting Public Mental Health and Well-being: Principles into Practice. London: Jessica Kingsley
HODES, M. and SHUR-FEN GAU, S. (2016) Positive Mental Health, Fighting Stigma and Promoting Resiliency for Children and Adolescents. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
KOPROWSKA, J. (2014) Communication and Interpersonal Skills in Social Work (Transforming Social Work Practice Series). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
gov.uk UK national government website Mental Capital and Wellbeing: Making the most of ourselves in the 21st century
Who.int World Health Organization promoting mental health: Concepts, emerging evidence, practice.
