Ashford University Locating Resources Discussions

Ashford University Locating Resources Discussions

Ashford University Locating Resources Discussions

Locating Resources

In recent years, there have been deliberate efforts to ensure that people have good health and quality of life in the face of a wide range of health complications. Chronic conditions or illnesses have not made it easier as they have been a bother to individuals, the community, and the nation as a whole (Halfon et al., 2018). It is common knowledge that patients suffering from chronic illness require support from various resources, which can be provided by the national or community resource centers. Besides, these individuals need medical, emotional, and physical support to help them have better patient outcomes.

Among such chronic conditions are mental illnesses such as schizoaffective disorder (Miller & Black, 2019). Therefore, this assignment seeks to discuss the available national resources for patients with schizoaffective disorder. Various aspects of the resources will be discussed including, the information the patient needs to know regarding the services, benefits, fee schedules, criteria for eligibility, application process, and transportation availability. In addition, the write-up will explore how the resources can be integrated into a plan of care and potential disadvantages and advantages for the vulnerable people seeking the resources.

The National Resources

            The adverse effects of mental health conditions imply that a lot of interest has been turned to efforts aiming to support patients with various conditions. In the US, there are various national resources available to support patients with mental health conditions such as schizoaffective disorder. Some of the resources include the National Alliance on mental illness, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, and Mental Health America. The National Alliance on mental illness is a national mental health organization providing resources for better health for the America who have mental illnesses and is the largest organization in America offering mental health support (NAMI, n.d.). Apart from offering support and raising awareness, the organization also offers education to individuals with mental health illnesses. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration is an urgency which is part of the health and human services department with the focus of leading the public health efforts to support the nation’s behavioral health and the life quality of people with mental illness and disorders resulting from substance abuse (SAMHSA, n.d.). Mental health America is focused on meeting the needs of individuals living with mental illness and ensuring that they have overall better mental health.

Benefits of the Resources

The three identified resources have various things that individuals can benefit from. National Alliance on mental illness has various benefits. For instance, volunteers trained by the organization usually educate individuals in various community settings on matters to do with mental health. The supports groups and programs offer outstanding support, skills training, and fee education (NAMI, n.d.). The other benefit is that individuals with mental illnesses and their families can access a video resource library and online discussion groups to help them in managing the condition better.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration also has various benefits to offer to patients with various mental health conditions. One notable benefit is that policymakers, clinicians, communities, and individuals can access the evidence-based practice resource center to obtain tools and information to help in the treatment, prevention, and management of mental health conditions such as schizoaffective disorders (SAMHSA, n.d.). Another benefit is that the individuals can get access to medication-assisted treatment, which involves using medications integrated with behavioral and counseling therapies. Mental health America also has various benefits that individuals can get. For instance, the provision of mental health screenings (MHA, n.d). Through the mental health month observance, the organization reaches millions of individuals through screenings, local events, and media.

Specific Services Offered and Fees Schedules

The identified resources offer specific services that make them important for individuals who have mental health illnesses such as schizoaffective disorders. National Alliance on mental illness offers a host of services. For instance, the organization offers support and education to individuals with mental health illnesses (NAMI, n.d.). There is no fee schedule for the resources.  The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration offers specific services such as personnel, funding, information and data, policies, and programs to support individuals with mental health problems (SAMHSA, n.d.). The fee is charged for freedom of information. Individuals or organization is only billed if the fee goes beyond $25. Mental health America offers services that promote mental health, such as early identification, various interventions for individuals at risk support, and integrated care services. This resource has no fee schedule.

Criteria for Eligibility

The organizations have criteria for eligibility. The National Alliance on mental illness is open for everyone and offer chances for subscription for individuals to subscribe to the latest mental health updates and engage in groups for online discussions regarding mental health (NAMI, n.d.). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration is also open, and everyone is eligible (SAMHSA, n.d.). However, there are no other detailed criteria for eligibility. Mental health America resources are also open for use by individuals who would want to use them. Everyone is allowed to sign up on the resource website to stay connected with the activities and access various resources.

Application Process

When applying to National Alliance on mental illness, there are two strategies that individuals can use. One of them is that an individual has to create an account (NAMI.org) which enables an individual to start the connection with the organization and receive every update as soon as the organization releases them. An individual can then become a member at all the levels-the local, State, and national by paying some fee. The membership rates differ, depending on what an individual wants (NAMI, n.d.). While individuals with limited financial resources pay $5 per year for open-door membership, regular membership costs $40 per annum. In addition to household membership, individuals living in the same address need to pay $60 per annum to cover all of them.

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration has one of the procedures for people wanting to apply and join as subscribing to their email newsletters. Such subscriptions allow the individuals to stay up to date regarding the latest resources, events, and news (SAMHSA, n.d.). The application process for mental health America entails an online application process where a digital form is filled and submitted. The form has various steps which have to be followed for a complete application; a mental health America staff then gets in contact. The discussed resource are all available online, and therefore no need for any transportation. However, individuals who sign for hardcopy newsletters and magazines usually get the resources transported to them.

Integration of Resources into A plan of Care

The fundamental reason for using the national or local resources is to ensure that the mental health patients such as those living with schizoaffective disorders get support and better management for better and improved patient outcomes. National Alliance on mental illness, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health Service Mental health America all have educational programs to support patients with mental illnesses (NAMI, n.d.). Education is one of the most important parts of disease treatment and management. Through education, the patients get to know how to use the medications, medication adherence, and the reasons why it is important to adhere to the medication regimen (SAMHSA, n.d.). The patients also learn various life adjustment strategies and life coping skills to help them have better health outcomes. The online support and discussion groups are also useful as individuals living with mental health illness, and their families get to connect with others with similar conditions and hold discussions on various topics like how they cope with the conditions.

Caring for patients with mental health conditions requires the clinicians to have adept knowledge and the strategies to use to ensure that the patients get better health management and outcomes; one of such is the use of the evidence-based practice. The discussed organizations, especially the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, have a resource dedicated purely for evidence-based practice care management of mental health conditions (SAMHSA, n.d.). The resource draws from the most current evidence-based published and peer-reviewed literature that documents the treatment, management, and prevention of mental health conditions.

The resource center offers policymakers, clinicians, communities, individuals, and other people with appropriate tools and information to help in incorporating evidence-based practice into the clinical settings or communities. As such, mental health experts in formulating a plan of care for mental health patients such as those living with schizoaffective disorders can use the resources to improve treatment options, management and prevent the condition from worsening (NAMI, n.d.). For individuals identified to be at risk of developing mental health problems during screening, the clinicians can use the resources to protect the patients from the potential mental health illness or still delay the onset.

Potential Advantages and Disadvantages for Vulnerable Populations in Seeking These Resources.

In seeking these resources for the use, vulnerable populations may have potential advantages and disadvantages. To begin with, various advantages exist. One of them is that if they manage to access the resources, the vulnerable populations would have better health outcomes. For instance, while it may be expensive to access some services for mental health in various places, these resources offer free support and education to individuals and even subsidize fees for payable services for individuals with poor economic backgrounds (Latulippe et al., 2017). The other advantage is that in accessing the resources, individuals do not need to physically visit the resources as they can access them online. In most cases, all an individual needs to do is to sign up. As such, problems like inaccessibility due to poor transport are eliminated.

The vulnerable populations seeking to access and use these resources may have some disadvantages. For instance, the resources are mostly offered in English, so the vulnerable populations, especially immigrants coming from minority groups, may need the services of a translator who can translate the resource contents into the native language for effective use (Latulippe et al., 2017). In some cases, they may not be able to get such translators, hence underutilization of the resources. Even though online access of the materials or resources can be an advantage, it may also be a disadvantage because some of the vulnerable population may find it difficult to access the internet and appropriately locating the resource, hence needing further help.

Conclusion

In conclusion, mental health conditions or illnesses such as schizoaffective disorders have devastating and adverse health outcomes on individuals, calling for better management, treatment, and prevention strategies. Therefore, this write-up has explored the management of mental health conditions through the use of national resources. The discussion national resources are based on National Alliance on mental illness, Substance Abuse, and Mental Health Service Mental health America.

Ashford University Locating Resources Discussions References

Halfon, N., Forrest, C. B., Lerner, R. M., & Faustman, E. M. (2018). Handbook of life course health development.

Latulippe, K., Hamel, C., & Giroux, D. (2017). Social health inequalities and eHealth: a literature review with qualitative synthesis of theoretical and empirical studies. Journal of medical Internet research, 19(4), e6731. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6731

Miller, J. N., & Black, D. W. (2019). Schizoaffective disorder: A review. Annals of clinical psychiatry: official journal of the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists, 31(1), 47-53. https://doi.org/10.3109/10401239109147967.

MHA. (n.d). Mental health America. https://mhanational.org/about.

NAMI. (n.d). Who we are. https://www.nami.org/About-NAMI/Who-We-Are.

NAMI. (n.d). Mental health education. https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/Mental-Health-Education.

SAMHSA. (n.d). Who we are. https://www.samhsa.gov/about-us/who-we-are.

SAMHSA. (n.d). Evidence-based practices resource center. https://www.samhsa.gov/resource-search/ebp.

Your specific assignment follows. Start with an exploration of what can be found in several of the areas listed above. Then, identify one area and prepare a descriptive post outlining the information in this site. You may want to experiment with various areas in order to understand the unusually large number of resources / programs, but also the kinds of information.

Research Venues

for this discussion post differentiating qualitative, quantitative, and analysis of availability data. Identify those attributes that form the essence of these three research venues.

See attachment for full instructions

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.