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Running head: COMMUNITY EDUCATIONAL PROJECT ACTION PLAN 0

Community Educational Project Action Plan

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Date

Community Educational Project Action Plan

Introduction

Mental health remains among the top issues affecting the youths in the community. Most youths continue to suffer from mental health complications yet little attention is given to resolve the mental health issue faced by the youths. It is thus important for health care organizations to develop programs or initiatives to help the youths and young adults overcome the mental health challenges and thus live quality lives. This paper will address some of the goals and objectives regarding mental health as per the Healthy People 2020, a plan that could be used to implement the activities, an estimated budgetary allocation, a justification for the project, where and when the plan will be implemented, the teaching materials that will be utilized, the nursing actions/interventions that could be used to improve the health concern and help to get the expected goals and objectives, and conclude with some of the possible public and private partnerships that will help in the implementation of the recommendations for potential expected outcomes.

Goals and Objectives

Goals

• To improve the mental health of young adults through prevention and by ensuring that young adults have access to appropriate, quality mental health services (Healthy People, 2020).

Objectives

• To reduce suicide attempts by young adolescents from 1.9 suicide attempts per 100 population to 1.7 suicide attempts per 100 population (Healthy People, 2020).

• To reduce the proportions of adolescents aged between 12 years and 17 years who experience major depressive episodes from 8.3 percent to 7.5 percent (Healthy People, 2020).

Implementation Plan

Assessing the Prevailing Health Conditions

The first step will be to assess the data available in order to create a clear picture of the prevailing health conditions in the community. Both qualitative and quantitative data will be analyzed at this stage to get a clearer picture of what is expected from the program based on the mental health status of the community. The data should be stored, organized, analyzed, and easily shared with all the stakeholders that will be involved to ensure everyone is on the same side, and thus increasing the probability of success of the plan.

Conducting a Community Health Assessment

The next step will be to conduct a community health assessment. A community health assessment can be achieved through conducting interviews, surveys, using focus groups, and examining knowledge from primary quantitative sources as well as other secondary quantitative sources (Barry et al., 2019). This will help to determine the type of community and the mental health status of the community. It will also offer the ability to identify the assets and resources that are present in the community to help those with mental health issues in the community. Resources and assets could include mental health professionals, funding, and facilities to help youths with mental health issues.

Identifying and Engaging Stakeholders

The third step will be to identify the right stakeholders and ensure they are fully updated. Some of the stakeholders that could be included include faith-based institutions like churches, in this case, nonprofit organizations like NAMI, foundations, the local government, community groups, and schools. Youths with mental health issues will also be included as a part of the stakeholders.

Prioritizing Issues

The fourth step will be to prioritize the issues to be addressed by the community health education project. Prioritization will help the focus on the primary mental health issues affecting young adults so that the use of the resources will produce the maximal impact on the young adults with mental health issues in the community (Barry et al., 2019). Having fewer priorities will help the community educational project to maximize the impact of the plan, increase focus, and to align the plan to meet individual and community goals and objectives established previously.

Creating Organizational-Level Strategies or Program and Implementing

Collaborative conversations will be held to determine the most appropriate programs. The contributions of each of the partners should be ascertained towards the program, the strategies, and every action involved (Barry et al., 2019). These strategies in the community health education project should be able to conduct follow-up to determine whether the project is headed in the right direction as a result of the program or whether the situation remains wanting.

Evaluation and Improvement

For the strategies that produce undesirable outcomes, slight modifications should be done to ensure success. Conducting regular evaluations will help to make the necessary changes considering the fact that resources are bound to change and the fact that conducting new research with new insights that could help to produce better outcomes (Barry et al., 2019). Evaluation should be geared towards gauging the quality and impact of the project. The findings of the evaluation should be shared during community convening or in the church where the project will be launched. The evaluation should be an iterative and on-going process both in the organizations and in the community. The strategies should be re-adjusted from time to time to ensure optimal outcomes are achieved through continuous improvement. This should be conducted every month to ensure resources are allocated to strategies that are working.

Budget

Figure 1: Proposed budgetary allocation for the community health educational project

Justification for the Project

Mental health problems are a common phenomenon in the community in which I live. Most of the youths in the community are facing mental health issues although there are barely any programs or strategies that have been developed to help address such mental health issues. Some of the common mental health issues include anxiety and panic attacks, anger, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, dissociation and dissociative disorders, depression, eating disorders, sleeping problems, and suicidal thoughts and attempts. Most of the cases end up being fatal due to the loss of lives. For instance, the Healthy People (2020) reports that these mental health issues result in issues like helplessness, frustration, alienation, anger, sadness, feelings of helplessness, loss, guilt, financial problems due to the high cost of treatment and medication, and compassion fatigue among families. However, by addressing the mental health issue, there lies the opportunity to increase the productivity of the youths and other vices like marginalization and discrimination in the community. This project will also help to improve the mental health of young adults through prevention and by ensuring that young adults have access to appropriate, quality mental health services. The young adults will help to reduce suicide attempts by young adolescents and to reduce the proportions of adolescents who experience major depressive episodes. This will help to free up time for the practitioners so that they can focus on other health issues, helping to improve the health outcomes of the youths in the community.

Plan Implementation (When and Where)

The community health education project will be implemented from November 1st, 2020 until June 30th, 2021, spanning a period of 8 months. The project will be launched at the local community church on a Sunday. This will be an effective time because most of the youths attend the local church on Sundays to pray to God over some of the issues that they are facing like stress, depression, and anxiety, among others. The church will thus be an effective venue and Sunday, November 1st, 2020 will create ample time to notify the youths to attend the launching of the project.

Teaching Materials

Some of the teaching materials that will be used for the community health education project include leaflets, posters, cards, flip charts, audio cassettes, films, and videos. These materials can be easily located within the non-governmental organizations, local governments, and national organizations. Posters could be created by local talented artists and activists willing to help in the community health education project. Health-related talks, lectures, group discussions, holding demonstrations, and buzz groups can also be organized from time-to-time to help convey the message to the people in the community.

Recommend Nursing Actions/Interventions

Some of the recommended nursing actions that can be taken include:

• Supporting and treating young adults in the community who are diagnosed to have mental health illnesses.
  

• Encouraging healthy behaviors.

• Building good relationships with the patients to promote mental health.

• Identifying and treating symptoms earlier (Darch, Baillie, & Gillison, 2017).

Potential Public and Private Partnerships

The community could be involved in the partnerships that will be established to help the youths facing mental health issues. Other potential private and public partnerships include faith-based institutions like churches, non-profit organizations like NAMI which will be involved proactively in the community health education project, foundations, the local government, community groups, and schools.

References

Barry, M. M., Clarke, A. M., Petersen, I., & Jenkins, R. (Eds.). (2019). Implementing mental health promotion. Springer Nature.

Darch, J., Baillie, L., & Gillison, F. (2017). Nurses as role models in health promotion: a concept analysis. British Journal of Nursing, 26(17), 982-988.

Healthy People (2020). Mental health and Mental Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/mental-health-and-mental-disorders on September 22, 2020.