Understanding Mental Health: Types, Impact On Child Development, Stigma, And Effective Support Strategies, Essay.

What Is Mental Health?

What Are The Many Types And Forms Of Mental Health?

Why Is This Social Issue In Our Society?

What Are The Possible Outcomes Of Mental Health?

Who Can Have Mental Illness?

What Steps Can Be Taken To Help Victims Of Mental Health?

What Are The Various Approaches That You Will Use To Build Authentic Partnerships In Early Childhood Settings?

What Is The Impact Of Mental Health On The Child And The Child’s Development And Sense Of Wellbeing?

Why Is It Important To Have a Strengths-Based Approach?

Types of Mental Health

Mental health is mainly seen to refer to the cognitive, behavioural as well as emotional well-being of individuals that indicates entirely about how the individuals feel, think and behave. The term of mental health can sometimes be used in meaning the absence of a mental disorder (Lawrence et al., 2015). Mental health has the ability on affecting the daily life, relationships as well as physical health of individuals. Mental health is seen to include the ability of an individual to enjoy life by attaining successfully a balance between the life activities and efforts in achieving psychological resilience (Lawrence et al., 2016)..

There are 300 mental disorders which have been listed in the DSM-5 called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These are the mood disorders including bipolar disorders and depression. Others are the anxiety disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. Others are the eating disorders and subsrace abuse disorders. The others are trauma related disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder. (Happell, Wilson & McNamara, 2015). Anxiety disorders are common most with 14.4%, followed by affective disorders about 6.2% and then substance abuse disorders in 5.1% (Perry et al., 2015).

Mental health issues have always been looked down by the society. There are prejudices that had been harboured by the society over the decades of years. Society does not view mental health issues as another form of health conditions just like physical health issues. Mental health disorders are always associated with the terms like “violent, aggressive, unfortunate, punishment” and many others. Association of the words with mental health disorders are mainly because of the stigmatised behaviours shown by society and people towards the mental health patient and his family members (Brownson, 2017). Different types of stigma can prevail regarding mental health issues like that of the personal stigma where certain individuals exhibit stigmatising attitudes towards the mentally ill patients. Another form is the perceived stigma where the affected individuals feels low about the negative and stigmatising viewpoints that other people are seen to hold (Boydel et al., 2014). Another is the self stigma where individuals hold stigmatizing views about their own levels and the structural stigma where the polices of public and private institutions and cultures restrict the opportunities , resources and well being of people with  mental illness (Ennis et al., 2015).

The personalised experience of the stigma is highly detrimental to the well being of the quality of life but is not given enough priority in treatment either but community or mental health professionals as reported in the National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Stigma is seen to promote and reinforce social isolation. This is highly detrimental for the children and their families as they cannot handle the additional stress of such stigmatisation in addition to the mental health issues that they suffer from (Lawrence et al., 2016). It is seen to limit equitable opportunities in the employment domain as well as for the recreational and academic opportunities that children need to participate in. They are seen to conceal their mental ailments with the fear of such stigmatisation and discrimination attitude of society which results in additional negative outcomes on their health as their mental issues remain untreated. It discourages their help-seeking behaviours and the families are also seen to conceal such conditions of their wards with the fear of exclusion from society (Brownson, 2017).

Prevalent Stigma Associated with Mental Health Issues

Children might suffer from depression, anxiety, stress due to their academic requirements and standards that they need to meet. They might be stressed about separation from family members, friends, romantic linkups and many others which over time might result in mental ailments and substance abuse. Children and family might also get exposed to trauma like abuse, violence, disaster, terrorism, traumatic loss and many others. Therefore, it is important for the professionals to first realise the root of the occurrence of mental ailments and negative feelings in place of treating the symptoms only superficially (Trotter, 2015). The professionals should identify the trauma exposed children and provide culturally appropriate support as well as information. They should help the children the families to make connections for the interventions and follow-ups (Atladottir et al., 2015). They should also arrange for programs involving consolation to the professionals in schools, healthcare settings, spiritual settings as well as the other service systems who care for trauma exposed children and families. They should gather training in the evidence based therapies for children for effectively treating them who have less coping power (Happell, Wilson & McNamara, 2015).

It is important for the professionals to understand the child, the family and the cultural perspectives in order to develop therapeutic relationship with them. Therefore, they should listen attentively showing genuine interests to child and family, incorporate extended families and kinship network, provide interventions respecting their cultural and spiritual perspective if traumas, reactions and interventions (Atladottir et al., 2015). While working with children, they need to take into account the developmental considerations of the children like identity, social, emotional, cognitive and biological bases and hence provide interventions that align with them (Boydel et al., 2014). Families should be given scope to express their fears, concerns and suggestions and family centred therapy can be provided to them to develop their strength. The four phases for family centred therapy can be included by mental health workers to empower them like the joining and assessment phase, the restructuring phase, valuing change phase and the Generalization Phase (Kaakinen et al., 2018).

Trans-disciplinary approaches are mainly defined as the sharing of the roles across the disciplinary boundaries so that effective communication, interaction as well as cooperation can get maximised among the team members trying to help the children and families overcome the difficult phase. Besides counselling for the individual child who have been affected, peer assisted learning programs, parent education of the needs of the children at each development stage are important (Ryan et al., 2015). Strategies for teachers for proper classroom management, community violence prevention programs, screening programs, recreation centres should be developed. Systemic services like coordination of services in health, juvenile justice education and child protection systems should be also involved. Besides child centred and strength based therapies are also used (Bor, 2015). Children are not a homogenous group and each child has their own individual experiences and perspectives. Therefore, children with complex care needs require special considerations by mental health workers for ensuring their best mental health, well being and meeting of their rights while provising interventions. This is called child centred approach (Coyne et al., 2016)

Anyone Can Have Mental Illness

List of services are The Northern Beaches Psychiatrist and Psychologist, Dalwood Children's Services, Manly Pittwater Psychology - Counseling & Psychologist Northern Beaches, Hornsby Child and Family Health Service, Psychology Northern Beaches, Ryde Child Family Health Centre and Kids First Children's Services (Mental health services for children and family in Northern Beaches Sydney, 2018)

Children suffering from the mental health disorders isolate themselves from society with the fear of being judged. They lose their self esteem and confidence and cannot perform well in different spheres of life (Ryan et al., 2015). They tend to work poorly in academic projects, cannot interact well with other children and elders and might take up substance abuse to cope with the issues. Constant pressure from elders, peers, teachers and others in different regards makes them prone to self-harm, gloominess, depression and social exclusion (Bor, 2015).

Strength based approach should be taken up by the professionals as it helps in not only taking the symptoms in consideration but mainly empowers the inner strength which has the capacity to help in recovering from the situation and gives hopes. They should shift away the focus from the deficits of the children and focus more on their strengths to help them recover the ailments (Atladottir et al., 2015). The approaches should be based on focusing the ability of the child and the family, helping them to develop the confidence of the recovery journey and help them to progress towards recovery. Shortcomings are neglected and abilities are encouraged. Aspirations, hopes, assets, interests and qualities are elicited and thus they are cultivated in this form of treatment (Brownson, 2017).

References:

Atladottir, H. O., Gyllenberg, D., Langridge, A., Sandin, S., Hansen, S. N., Leonard, H., ... &Hultman, C. M. (2015). The increasing prevalence of reported diagnoses of childhood psychiatric disorders: a descriptive multinational comparison. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 24(2), 173-183.

Bor, W., Dean, A. J., Najman, J., &Hayatbakhsh, R. (2014). Are child and adolescent mental health problems increasing in the 21st century? A systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(7), 606-616.

Boydell, K. M., Hodgins, M., Pignatiello, A., Teshima, J., Edwards, H., & Willis, D. (2014). Using technology to deliver mental health services to children and youth: a scoping review. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 23(2), 87.

Brownson, R. C. (2017). Dissemination and implementation research in health: translating science to practice. Oxford University Press. Chapter 6, pg :225-300

Coyne, I., Hallström, I., & Söderbäck, M. (2016). Reframing the focus from a family-centred to a child-centred care approach for children’s healthcare. Journal of Child Health Care, 20(4), 494-502.

Ennis, G., Happell, B., & Reid?Searl, K. (2015). Clinical leadership in mental health nursing: The importance of a calm and confident approach. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 51(1), 57-62.

Happell, B., Wilson, R., & McNamara, P. (2015). Undergraduate mental health nursing education in Australia: more than Mental Health First Aid. Collegian, 22(4), 433-438.

Kaakinen, J. R., Coehlo, D. P., Steele, R., & Robinson, M. (2018). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. FA Davis.

Lawrence, D., Hafekost, J., Johnson, S. E., Saw, S., Buckingham, W. J., Sawyer, M. G., ... & Zubrick, S. R. (2016). Key findings from the second Australian child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 50(9), 876-886.

Lawrence, D., Johnson, S., Hafekost, J., Boterhoven de Haan, K., Sawyer, M., Ainley, J., & Zubrick, S. R. (2015). The mental health of children and adolescents: report on the second Australian child and adolescent survey of mental health and wellbeing.

Mental health services for children and family in Northern Beaches Sydney, 2018 retrieved from https://www.google.co.in/search?q=mental+health+servoces+for+chidl+and+family+in+northern-beaches+Sydney&oq=mental+health+servoces+for+chidl+and+family+in+northern-beaches+Sydney&aqs=chrome..69i57.8253j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Perry, L., Lamont, S., Brunero, S., Gallagher, R., & Duffield, C. (2015). The mental health of nurses in acute teaching hospital settings: a cross-sectional survey. BMC nursing, 14(1), 15.

Ryan, S. M., Jorm, A. F., Toumbourou, J. W., &Lubman, D. I. (2015). Parent and family factors associated with service use by young people with mental health problems: a systematic review. Early intervention in psychiatry, 9(6), 433-446.

Trotter, C. (2015). Working with involuntary clients: A guide to practice. Routledge. Chapter-4, pg, 435-500