Managing Mental Health In The Community

Managing Mental Health in the Community is a guide to best practice in the management of community care for people with mental health problems. A major theme is how to balance the 'triangle of care' that represents the needs and concerns of the user, carer (professional or family) and community. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of the task, this book aims to encourage reflective practice amongst staff, managers and policy-makers. The experienced practitioners who contribute not only challenge some of the assumptions prevalent in the field, but also present some tried and tested interventions used to enable users, staff and managers to function more effectively in community settings. They consider: * how community care has developed * the fundamental concepts of community care * how management is affected by practice * how care systems are designed. Managing Mental Health in the Community should be essential reading for Mental Health Practitioners, Managers, Social Workers, Policy-Makers, Organizational Consultants and all those professionals who are committed to improving the quality of mental health services provided in the community.

A majority of people living in rural areas and urban slums worldwide have minimal access to healthcare. Without information about what to give a child with stomach flu, how to relieve the pain of a broken bone, and how to work against increased substance abuse in a village, the whole community suffers. Children, adolescents, adults, and older people are all affected by the lack of what many of us view as basic healthcare, such as vaccination, pain killers, and contraceptives. To improve living conditions and life expectancy, the people in urban slums and rural areas need access to a trained health care worker, and a functioning clinic. Setting up Community Health and Development Programmes in Low and Middle Income Settings illustrates how to start, develop, and maintain a health care programme in poor areas across the world. The focus is on the community, and how people can work together to improve health through sanitation, storage of food, fresh water, and more. Currently, there is a lack of 17 million trained health care workers worldwide. Bridging the gap between medical professionals and people in low income areas, the aim of this book is for a member of the community to receive training and become the health care worker in their village. They will then in turn spread information and set up groups working to improve health. The book also explains in detail how communities can work alongside experts to ensure that practices and processes work effectively to bring the greatest impact. Copiously illustrated and written in easy-to-read English, this practical guide is designed to be extremely user friendly. Ideal for academics, students, programme managers, and health care practitioners in low and middle income settings worldwide, it is an evidence based source full of examples from the field. Setting up Community Health and Development Programmes in Low and Middle Income Settings shows how a community can both identify and solve its own problems, and in that way own its future. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence.

While mental illness and mental health care are increasingly recognized and accepted in today’s society, awareness of the most severely mentally ill—as well as those who care for them—is still dominated by stereotypes. Managing Madness in the Community dispels the myth. Readers will see how treatment options often depend on the social status, race, and gender of both clients and carers; how ideas in the field of mental health care—conflicting priorities and approaches—actually affect what happens on the ground; and how, amid the competing demands of clients and families, government agencies, bureaucrats and advocates, the fragmented American mental health system really works—or doesn’t. In the wake of movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Shutter Island, most people picture the severely or chronically mentally ill being treated in cold, remote, and forbidding facilities. But the reality is very different. Today the majority of deeply troubled mental patients get treatment in nonprofit community organizations. And it is to two such organizations in the Midwest that this study looks for answers. Drawing upon a wealth of unique evidence—fifteen months of ethnographic observations, 91 interviews with clients and workers, and a range of documents—Managing Madness in the Community lays bare the sometimes disturbing nature and effects of our overly complex and disconnected mental health system. Kerry Michael Dobransky examines the practical strategies organizations and their clients use to manage the often-conflicting demands of a host of constituencies, laws, and regulations. Bringing to light the challenges confronting patients and staff of the community-based institutions that bear the brunt of caring for the mentally ill, his book provides a useful broad framework that will help researchers and policymakers understand the key forces influencing the mental health services system today.

What are the key tasks that a mental health manager needs to fulfil? What are the six key steps needed to develop manageable mental health services? How can managers not just survive but creatively improve mental health services? This is a practical, no-nonsense book designed to help managers of mental health services cope, survive and constructively fulfil their role. It has been written to help managers to function in an increasingly complex mental health service arena. In clear, jargon-free language it aims to demystify key managerial terms, to provide an understandable summary of the relevant policy and legal framework, and to provide signposts to assist managers in making their way through the maze of service planning and service development options. Managing Mental Health Services will be a leading practical handbook in its field, a point of reference for hands-on managers, and a source of stimulating advice, tips and guidance in mental health service management.

This book was originally conceived in 1987. It was then seen as a contribution towards improved management and policy-making in a diffuse and neglected area of NHS management. The focus of the book is the 'old' Community Health Services: those transferred to Area Health Authorities from local authorities in the 1974 re organization of the NHS. These diverse services, while grouped together, had little objectively in common, occupying, as they do, a hazy middle ground between hospital and Family Practitioner Services. However, since 1974 there have been a number of major devel opments which have opened opportunities for change and devel opment in these services. These include: the resurrection of concern with 'Public Health'; the attempted closure of large mental illness and mental handicap hospitals and the development of 'Com munity Care'; the introduction of General Management; and the implication for health and local authorities of the White Papers 'Caring for People', 'Promoting Better Health' and 'Working for Patients'. Traditionally, Community Health Services were seen as low status and a professional dead-end. This, in tum, has led to a rather uneven body of literature. The growth of general management has led to a demand for a more coherent, management-orientated literature. It is our hope that this book will encourage the production of more literature in this area.

Clinical Management in Mental Health Services is a practical guide to the day to day operational management of mental health teams. It explores both the theoretical aspects of management plus strategies for dealing with the wide range of management issues faced by managers working in mental health. It looks at issues such as leading a multidisciplinary team, Communication and Public Relations, the importance of clinical supervision, evidence-based practice, and quality assurance. It addresses the issue of workload management, clinical information management, how to plan a budget and how to manage stress.

The Saskatchewan Mental Hospital at Weyburn has played a significant role in the history of psychiatric services, mental health research, and providing care in the community. Its history provides a window to the changing nature of mental health services over the 20th century. Built in 1921, Saskatchewan Mental Hospital was considered the last asylum in North America and the largest facility of its kind in the British Commonwealth. A decade later the Canadian Committee for Mental Hygiene cited it as one of the worst facilities in the country, largely due to extreme overcrowding. In the 1950s the Saskatchewan Mental Hospital again attracted international attention for engaging in controversial therapeutic interventions, including treatments using LSD. In the 1960s, sweeping healthcare reforms took hold in the province and mental health institutions underwent dramatic changes as they began transferring patients into communities. As the patient and staff population shrunk, the once palatial building fell into disrepair, the asylum’s expansive farmland went out of cultivation, and mental health services folded into a complicated web of social and correctional services. Erika Dyck’s "Managing Madness" examines an institution that housed people we struggle to understand, help, or even try to change.

" This is the first research-based book to confront workplace issues facing nurses who have disabilities. It not only examines in depth their experiences, roadblocks to successful employment, and misperceptions surrounding them, but also provides viable solutions for creating positive attitudes towards them and a welcoming work environment that fosters hiring and retention. From the perspectives and actual voices of nurses with disabilities, nurse leaders, nurse administrators, and patients, the book identifies nurses with disabilities (including sensory, musculoskeletal, emotional, and mental health issues), discusses why they choose to leave nursing or hide their disabilities, and analyzes how their disabilities may influence career choices. "