NU708 Mental Health Community Assessment Tool

NU708 Mental Health Community Assessment Tool

Mental health issues emanate from the interaction of various factors that range from economic, social, psychological, and emotional aspects of human life. Attempting to solve the diversified health needs across all life aspects, requires many health stakeholders to work in collaboration with each other to provide the solutions to these problems. Common health stakeholders that work together to help solve the mental health issues for the mentally ill and the vulnerable population include social workers, community health workers, mental health advocates, local clergy/ faith leaders, and school counselors. All the above stakeholders apply their expertise and specialization in dealing with mental health issues due to their insight (Duncan et al., 2023).

Identify and contact someone in your community who participates in the care of those who have mental health issues or who are a part of a vulnerable population. The individual interviewed should not be a part of the nursing profession. Discuss how you develop a needs assessment on the particular population. How do you approach this population of patients? What local resources are available for referral? How might you work as an inter-professional team to care for your chosen population of patients? (MO 1,2,3)

For this assignment, I interview a social worker operating with the Veterans at VA Medical Center. Social workers often work with vulnerable populations at their community level. This puts them in a better position to evaluate and understand the needs of the population irrespective of not being in the nursing profession. Their knowledge of the community needs plays a crucial role in strategizing and prioritizing the appropriate interventions as well as the allocation of resources where needed. This enhances the effectiveness of the interventions due to appropriate assessment and direct involvement of the people as part of the solution. Also, the social workers have broad knowledge about the demographics of the community they come from which makes them identify the most vulnerable group and facilitate their support in terms of financial support, and access to medical care, other support programs such as relief food and free medical camps (Duncan et al., 2023).

A good needs assessment tool is designed by a collaborative team with a common aim to identify the population’s demographics, identify their needs in order of their priority, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the community, for example, the available resources that can be used to address the identified problems, and also come up with ways to involve the members of the population in finding a solution to the community needs. Due to the above reasons, the assessment tool should follow a specific order in its development. To begin with, a clear definition of the demographic characteristics and specific needs of the population of interest is the definition stage. Secondly, various methods of data collection such as surveys, interviews, and reviews of existing data should be employed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Thirdly, the collected data should be analyzed to identify the needs to their urgency. Lastly, the interventions are prioritized to solve the most urgent needs with the severe-most consequences if left unattended.

Sensitivity and respect in addressing the mental health issues of the members of the vulnerable population are paramount. In this regard, the health stakeholders need to comply with various requirements when approaching the community. To begin with building trust, the health stakeholders need to build rapport by being empathetic and applying their expertise skills such as active listening and respect for their experiences. Secondly, cultural competence is another consideration that requires understanding and respecting the cultural backgrounds and beliefs of the population. Thirdly, the health stakeholders need to employ clear communication skills that enhance understanding during the engagements on health information. Lastly, the stakeholders should apply a patient-centered care modality that emphasizes individualization of care.
To address the community mental health issues, various resources need to be solicited and mobilized to channel their efforts toward solving the needs of the population. The resources include community mental health centers, non-profit organizations, social services, support groups, and emergency intervention services.

To comprehensively address the population’s needs, various professionals from both within the health sector and outside the health sector collaborate to deliver specialized and holistic care. As supported by McLaney et al., (2022), to accomplish effective multidisciplinary intervention, a team needs to be structured to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team, use electronic health records to ensure access to updated patient records for all team players, develop integrated care plans, conduct training and educative sessions across all the team members, ensure coordinated resource utilization, establish support system through collaboration and finally evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions through collection of feedback from the various team members.

References

Duncan, A., Stergiopoulos, V., Dainty, K. N., Wodchis, W. P., & Kirst, M. (2023). Community mental health funding, stakeholder engagement and outcomes: a realist synthesis. BMJ Open, 13(2), e063994. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-063994

McLaney, E., Morassaei, S., Hughes, L., Davies, R., Campbell, M., & Prospero, L. D. (2022). A Framework for Interprofessional Team Collaboration in a Hospital setting: Advancing Team Competencies and Behaviours. Healthcare Management Forum, 35(2), 112–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/08404704211063584

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NU708 Mental Health Community Assessment Tool

Identify and contact someone in your community who participates in the care of those who have mental health issues or who are a part of a vulnerable population. The individual interviewed should not be a part of the nursing profession.

NU708 Mental Health Community Assessment Tool

Discuss how you develop a needs assessment on the particular population. How do you approach this population of patients? What local resources are available for referral? How might you work as an inter-professional team to care for your chosen population of patients? (MO 1,2,3)

Please submit your paper through Turnitin plagiarism software prior to your final submission.

Please use APA 7th edition format to complete the assignment. You will use a title page with APA formatting and a reference page. Make sure to include scholarly references in the body of your paper.