Students will explore mental health care in individuals, organizations, and systems. The primary focus will be on practical skills within each of the three levels of care delivery within the context of case management and patient navigation as well as community-based support. Mental health care topics explored include historical trends in U.S. mental health care, governance and financing, quality and outcomes of care, and services and treatments across the life span.

The purpose of this course is to examine how individuals experience mental health treatment and to examine gaps in mental health treatments at various levels of impact (individual, organizational, system). This course will lead students to explore areas where improvement are needed in mental health treatment and how the church could contribute to mental health wellbeing in communities.  

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After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, the student is expected to provide one main thread that answers the question and two replies to classmates’ posts in each discussion. Main threads must be at least 500 words, include at least 1 citation, and demonstrate course-related knowledge. Each reply must be 250 words and include at least 1 citation. 

In this assignment, the student will present the topic that the student will explore in the final report. In this topic submission assignment, the student is required to submit a 1 paragraph description of the mental illness topic and population he or she has chosen for his or her final paper and a list of 20 references related to the topic. This assignment is designed to help the student begin working on the report early in the course and is expected to be a preliminary description at the mental health problem in his or her community.  

In this Population and Problem Assignment, the student is required to submit a 3-5 page description of the population within his or her community that he or she is focusing on in his or her Final Report and the key mental health problem that exists in this population in his or her community. This assignment is expected to include a clear description of the population group that the student have chosen to focus on in his or her community as well as how the mental health problem is currently presenting in his or her community. 

In this assignment, the student will write an annotated bibliography on 10 references that will be used for the Mental Health in Your Community: Final Report Assignment. The purpose of this assignment is to summarize the articles that will be used to write the Final Report. 

In this Key Factors Assignment, the student is required to submit a 3-5 page description of the factors involved in the mental health problem that exists in the population he or she has chosen in his or her community. This assignment is expected to include a clear description of the factors that are contributing to the problem and any relevant factors that may be keeping the student’s chosen population from getting the help they need. Students are encouraged to think about factors that may be prohibiting access to care or other barriers to effective treatment.

In this “The Church” Assignment, the student is required to submit a 2-3 page discussion of how the local church could help the individuals enduring the mental health problem that exists in the population you have chosen in your community. This assignment is expected to explore how the church could fill in the gaps that currently exist in your community in serving the population group of interest and ways they could help promote mental wellbeing within the topic and population group you are exploring.

The capstone assignment for the course is the Mental Health in Your Community: Final Report. This Final Report is a 15-20 page paper that analyzes a mental health problem in the student’s community. The goal of this report is to discuss the problem in the student’s community community as it relates to a specific population in the student’s community and propose a plan to help meet the treatment needs of this population with this mental health issue, with special focus on how the church could contribute to that plan. In the description of the mental health problem in his or her community, the student is also expected to discuss the scientific literature on his or her topic and key factors involved in the mental health issue in his or her community that lead the student to his or her proposed plan to help meet the treatment needs. The student is free to choose any mental health problem of interest that is present in a population in his or her community. The other assignments of the course are designed to work on pieces of this final report throughout the course.