Challenges And Strategies In Mental Health Program For Indigenous Youth: An Essay.

Mental health program for indigenous youth is essential for reduction of mental health problems among many youths in the country. The intervention is complex intervention that comprise of many different aspects. The program is designed to meet the UK policy of Know, Believe, and Act. The program has complex structure that composed of communities, governmental institutions and professionals. The program brings together local communities especially the indigenous communities. The program also takes into consideration various public health policies that help in solving the mental health challenges. For instance, The Ottawa Charter was established in the year 1986 that focuses on mental health. These include policies were adopted by the government to tackle the mental health problem.  The Mental health program for indigenous youth also considers the prevailing socio-economic factors that affect the communities particularly the indigenous communities. These factors include education, income, employment opportunities and cultural activities.

Mental health program for indigenous youth remains a complex issue that affects people in various ways. The Mental health program for indigenous youth is multi-faceted issues that involve many players and elements. The issues require exploration of mental health services, poverty reduction services, education and employment opportunities involved in the whole issues. The program and intervention aim to tackle some socio-economics issues that are linked to mental health of indigenous youths. In addition, the program and interventions involves communities and organizations to ensure the program is implemented (World Health Organization, 2012).

The mental health services within UK involve a number of organizations that seek to reduce the impact of mental health challenges among youths in the country. The government has come up with variety of services under the National Health Services. Some of the mental health services provided by the government are Children and young people's mental health services (CYPMHS), Children and young people's mental health services (CYPMHS) information for parents and carers; Children and young people's mental health services (CYPMHS) - help for children and young people (Government of United Kingdom, 2021).

Mental health program for indigenous youth involves many different indigenous communities to ensure that the program is well implemented. The United Kingdom consists of youths from various indigenous communities that form integral part of the program and intervention. These indigenous youths faces many challenges leading to poor mental health condition. For instance, these indigenous youths are facing challenges of poverty and poor economic situation leading to high prevalence of physical and poor mental health (Trofimovs & Dowse, 2014).

Contextual Factors

The intervention also involves a number of socio-economic issues that make the whole program complex. These socio-economic issues include education issues that affects the indigenous youths within the country as many youths has limited educational capability required for employment. In addition, the indigenous youths lack sustainable employment that enables them to achieve sustainable economic capacity.

There are many different contextual factors that affect the implementation of the program and intervention. These include geographical factor, socio-economic factors, political issues and cultural factors.

The Mental health program for indigenous youth is coupled by reduction of the impact of socio-economic issues that affects indigenous youths leading to poor mental health. Firstly, poverty is an issue that affects many indigenous youths leading to poor mental and physical health. Secondly, limited education capability of the indigenous youths is another area that the program aim to improve as this affects the economic state of indigenous youths. Thirdly, limited employment opportunities for the indigenous youths make the life of these youths miserable leading to depression (Kirmayer, Guzder & Rousseau, 2014).

Indigenous youths within the country are also facing geographic issues that are related to alienation and remote places which are not easily accessible. This has affected the growth and development in those areas leading to poor health services especially the mental health services. Most of these rural areas have been neglected leading to poor health services that affect indigenous people. 

The Mental health program for indigenous youth can be analyzed based on both strength and weaknesses. Firstly, mental health for the indigenous youths is highly valued within the National Health Services. The strength of the program is critical for help solve the mental issues that has highly affected a number of indigenous youths throughout the country. The program highly integrates various categories of organizations and communities to ensure that the community benefits most. The government has come up with several youth based programs to tackle the issue of mental problem among young people. This implies that the program is highly valuable among the citizens and needs to be strengthened (Nayak & Narayan, 2019).

Secondly, the complexity of the program makes the assessment and evaluation of the indigenous youth mental health program difficult. There are many components of the program that make it difficult to evaluate. This is important for ensuring the program is stronger yet those areas that need to be perfectly linked. The program should integrate various components to ensure that the intended action is achieved. In addition, the complex program and lack of a focused approach is seen as limitations of this program (Bywood, Brown & Raven, 2015).

Socio-Economic Factors

 The research perspective that is chosen for the evaluation of the program is the effectiveness perspective. The indigenous mental health issue is serious and has affected a considerable number of youths and need a close examination. The research perspective seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the research within the real world setting. For instance, the program needs to meet the real world objectives and tackle current problem affecting indigenous youths within the country. Moreover, the research should evaluate the extent to which the program has improved the lives of indigenous youths as oppose to other complex situations that affects majority of indigenous youths. This is also important for evaluation various issues as the beneficiaries of the current mental health program. This will help in determining the extent the program or intervention has benefited the community around in real world setting (Omma & Petersen, 2015).

The evaluation criteria aim to determine the effectiveness of the program in real world setting that enable evaluation of effectiveness of the program in meeting its objectives. The criteria for evaluation is based on comparison of intervention against the real world setting that already exist in the community. This is based on ability to choose on various components of the intervention and their effectiveness in achieving goals. Factors that will be evaluated include; the extent which intervention has produce results, areas that need improvement to ensure the program is effective in delivery of results and factors that highly affects the implementation of the program (Williamson et al., 2014).

The research design for the evaluation is mixed evaluation strategy that focuses on multiple evaluation methods.  The program is a complex health program that needs assessment and evaluation from many different directions.

Statistical evaluation focuses on the evaluation of the statistics findings from the program to determine its effectiveness in solving the mental health issue among indigenous youths. Various statistics derived from the program can be evaluated to determine the improvement as compared to previous data. This is important for determining the extent which the programs have benefited the community and the areas that still lag behind when compared to previous data. The data from the National Health Services shows the outcome of the program and areas that need improvement. This is important for ensuring the program meet the objective set for the program (Øvretveit, 2020).

Research survey is another evaluation method that is used to determine the effectiveness of the program in achieving the intended purpose. The evaluation method enables collection of data from masses on their perceived benefit. These surveys assist in obtaining direct information from indigenous communities on the benefits of the mental health program. Surveys can also be used to assess the benefit of the program among other stakeholders to ascertain the effectiveness of the program in attaining the objectives (Odgers & Jensen, 2020).

Geographical Issues

Feedback from users and stakeholders of health program is practical way to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in meeting the community needs. Collection of feedback and evaluation of these feedbacks from stakeholders such as community, indigenous youths and public health staff is essential part of evaluation. The feedback enables evaluation of the mental health program among the indigenous youths and its effectiveness in solving the mental issue among these communities. Involvement of community professionals especially those professionals working within these indigenous communities are important from evaluation of the health program (Zhang & Zheng, 2018).

There are many different factors that will be evaluated to ascertain the extent which the program has achieved the real life challenges.

The impact of the mental health program on the mental health of indigenous youths will be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the health program. This factors form key aspect of the program evaluation leading to improvement of the intervention. This can mean the number of youths that has benefited from the intervention. The extent the program has achieved its objectives necessary for the evaluation of the program. A good health care program should have a considerable impact on the target population (Kirwin, Meacock, Round & Sutton, 2022).

The numbers of indigenous youths that have benefited from the program are required to evaluate the outcome of the program especially the effectiveness of the intervention. The number of people that have benefited from the program forms an important aspect of the program evaluation that shows the direct outcome of the program in the community. Moreover, the intended purpose of the program is to benefit the local people hence evaluating the beneficiaries of the program will show the effectiveness of the program.  The program brings many different players that are linked to community and evaluation of the outcome particularly the number of beneficiaries of the program enable the program to improve (Jacobsen, 2020).

There are many different challenges that affect the implementation of the program and these need evaluation. The indigenous youth mental health program is a complex health program that has both weaknesses and strength. These challenges need to be examined to determine the solution and ways to improve the health program. The indigenous health program works in hand with the health care system especially the public mental health services. This linkage has some challenges particularly when integrating other components such as community and other organizations. The evaluation, therefore, will seek to establish these factors that affect the implementation of the health program in real life setting (Grzeszczyk & Zawada, 2020).

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Program

The evaluation of the cost effectiveness of the program takes into account various cost analysis such as types of cost, estimated cost and cost determinations and cost-effectiveness of the program.

The estimated cost of the program is £5.7 billion with intended beneficiaries of 4.5 million indigenous youths. This cost can be broken down in terms of salaries, facility rents and supplies. Human resources account for 28.6% of the total amount of the project cost since the human resource forms an important aspect of the program. Another extra 7.5% of the program cost goes to economic cost of the program. In addition, mental health service delivery as integral part of the program and the largest component of cost (37.6%). Mobilization and health information cost of the program account for 7.5% (Kanmiki et al., 2019).

There are many different types of cost that are incurred in starting and running of the program in real world setting. Firstly, the start-up cost and post start-up cost are costs that are required to start the program and run the program after establishment. Secondly, the level cost is another type of cost that focuses on the level of implementation of the program. The cost can be central particularly focused on the NHS or local at the community where the program is located. Thirdly, recurrent cost is costs that are recurring periodically, year or monthly that enable the implementation of the program (Kirmayer, 2015).

Cost determination of the intervention involves determination of various components of the program and expenses involved in the program. Firstly, Joint or overhead costs are cost incurred in establishing together with other programs or singly. The joint cost of the program involves the determination of cost incurred for launching program linked with other program. Overhead cost are cost that work particularly on a single program for instance, transportation cost during field visits of staffs. Secondly, capacity utilization is the determination of cost effectiveness of the program based on utilization of labour and capital. The approach seeks to determine the amount of funds allocated in comparison with the output. Thirdly, types of cost that may include the financial cost and economic cost of the program. The financial cost of the program includes all the financial resources that are needed for program to work. The economic cost includes those cost such as volunteers and other costs (Drummond, Sculpher, Claxton, Stoddart & Torrance, 2015).

The cost-effectiveness of the program can be determined through analysis of cost of the program as compared to current situation. For instance, the cost of implementation of the program is approximately £5.7 billion and will benefit 4.6 million youths. This enable Cost averted associated with treatment of mental health illness that tune to £58 billion in medical and other cost of treatment. This lead to saving of net cost of £52.3 billion cost saved after the implementation of the program within the country (Dalaba, Welaga & Matsubara, 2017).

Evaluation Plan

The program remains important for helping mentally depressed indigenous youths hence should be funded by the government. The program or interventions is essential for reduction health inequalities that have affected indigenous youths. The program should reduce the impact of mental health challenges that affects the indigenous people hence improvement of the public health in general (McIntyre et al., 2017).

Conclusion

In conclusion, mental health program for indigenous youth is an essential program that point to a number of health benefits. The program has proved beneficial to indigenous communities particularly the youths that are suffering from mental health problems. The health program can benefit a large number youths annually if well implemented. This implies that the mental health challenges that have been prevalence among the indigenous communities will be reduced. The Mental health program for indigenous youth comprises of many different components such as mental health service, indigenous communities, socio-economic factors and research components. The program involves a number of factors that enable the program evaluation to remain effective. This also includes the cost effectiveness of the program that makes the program beneficial to the community. The Mental health program for indigenous youth therefore is an essential program with huge potential among the indigenous youths.

In light of the mental health program for indigenous youth analysis, there are some recommendations that need to be considered. Firstly, there is need for proper integration of various components of the program to ensure effectiveness. Secondly, community involvement into the project is potential for success of the program. The aim of the public health particularly for the mental health is anchored on the policy of Know, Believe, and Act which focuses on the community. Thirdly, there is need for effective evaluation of the program to ensure that it remains viable and meet the objectives (Griffin, Naavaal, Scherrer, Patel & Chattopadhyay, 2017). 

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