Submit a 2page proposal that addresses the following:
- Provide a brief synopsis of the social problem you selected in Week 2.
- Provide a brief synopsis of the policy you selected in Week 4.
- Explain your selection of a policy—why, as a policy advocate, did you select this specific policy to promote change regarding the social problem?
- Identify the person or group who enacted the policy and explain their motivation or reason for advocating for this policy. How does the reason differ from your own advocacy and change goals?
- Describe the ways in which the policy impacts the populations and discuss the consequences—intended and unintended. Hint: Build on your answer to the following part of your Week 4 Assignment:
- Explain how this policy affects clients you might see in a clinical setting and why, as a clinical social worker, it would be important to advocate for change.
- Describe your initial work to change the policy (i.e., plan for social advocacy).
Be sure to incorporate the sources you found using standard APA format.
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Implementing EBP in a Community Mental Health Setting
Walden University
SOCW-6311
09/08/2024
Implementing Evidence-Based Practice in a Community Mental Health Setting
Description of Practice Setting
The community mental health agency that I work for is an outpatient facility offering counseling, psychiatric services, and case management of mental health and substance abuse consumers. It works with a diverse clientele to provide physical and mental health services that are recovery- and resilience-oriented, individualized, and person-centered.
Comparison of the Characteristics of Study Conditions and Practice Setting
Thus, the EBP was examined in the controlled setting with sufficient support, staff knowledge, and a relatively more uniform patient sample than in the community facilities. On the other hand, my field agency operates under resource constraints, with high caseloads and a more diverse clientele regarding culture, language, and socioeconomic status. These differences may affect the successful deployment of the EBP. For example, the absence of procedural time for staff training and the requirement of culturally sensitive practices in population-diverse areas might delay the implementation of the practice and, subsequently, alter its impact (Pitsillidou et al.,2021).
The consequences of these differences include the existence of a time lag in the actualization of all the benefits of the EBP. Depending on the background of the patients, some cultures may need some changes to be made to the intervention to suit their culture; hence, they might need more time and other resources, which have yet to be considered in the study. Furthermore, the higher caseloads further translate to a high probability of a decrease in compliance with the practice, thereby minimizing the extent of practice adoption in the initial stages of implementing the change. Steps for Implementing the Evidence-Based Practice
Step 1: Initial Assessment and Staff Training
One of the first measures in planning the EBP implementation would be to conduct a practice analysis to identify the practice strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and orient the staff to EBP (Dagne & Beshah, 2021).
Supporting Factors: Substantial support for enhancing patient care can be identified among the staff with good institutional commitment to utilizing evidence-based practices.
Limiting Factors: The staff may not embrace change, hence the necessity to readjust the affected services due to the heavy caseload, and may need more time to train on new technology.
Mitigation: To overcome these hurdles, training sessions are more fluid; they could be online or scheduled, for instance, after working hours. It may also be useful to engage staff in the planning process, and this way, they may also not resist change processes.
Step 2: Pilot Testing the EBP
Subsequently, a small group of clients should be recruited to undertake the study to determine the feasibility of implementing EBP (Powell et al.,2020).
• Supporting Factors: The agency's leaders recognize useful changes that can help get better client results.
• Limiting Factors: This is because the full implementation may be hampered by limited funding and resources during the first phases of implementation.
• Mitigation: A pilot that is on a smaller scale will enable the agency to get data about the efficacy of the intervention while at the same time not demanding a big up-front expenditure. Such data may then inform the implementation plan and refund in the event of need.
Step 3: Full Implementation
Once the pilot has been successfully implemented in some of these clients, it would then be replicated across all the clients of the EBP.
• Supporting Factors: The pilot complements a base on which the rest of the establishment can be persuaded to emulate, especially those who worked on the pilot phase of the practice.
• Limiting Factors: If the staff has heavy workloads, they may find it hard to follow the new practice because of the number of patients they are likely to handle.
• Mitigation: Tackling this would require the implementation of EBP on a phased basis, ensuring that workload is kept to doable levels and avails sufficient supervision and resources to staff members.
Expected Outcomes and or/Comparison to Research Findings
The consequences of implementing EBP in my field agency are expected to yield positive benefits in the treatment of clients, especially where the client presents with mental illnesses since this approach is likely to reduce the severity of the symptoms and, therefore, the medication required for these clients to recover. Nonetheless, I will agree that the study's findings will not be entirely similar to those found in my practice setting because of the agency's diverse population base and resource constraints. Although the study indicated good positive improvements, the modification of the structure of the EBP to accommodate the characteristics of a diverse culture and economy might take a longer period to implement, and in the short run, the results may vary.
Conclusion
Challenges associated with EBPs in a community mental health context are different, considering the extensive variation in the resources and patient characteristics between the study conditions and the implementing agency. Actually, by being very careful in choosing the tactics for implementing the EBP and by always considering possible barriers and finding possible ways how to remove such barriers, it will be possible to implement the EBP and optimize the client outcomes even though the timeline and the results may not be the same with the ones presented in the study.
References
Dagne, A. H., & Beshah, M. H. (2021). Implementation of evidence-based practice: The experience of nurses and midwives. PloS one, 16(8), e0256600. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256600
Pitsillidou, M., Roupa, Z., Farmakas, A., & Noula, M. (2021). Factors Affecting the Application and Implementation of Evidence-based Practice in Nursing. Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH, 29(4), 281–287. https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2021.29.281-287
Powell, B. J., Haley, A. D., Patel, S. V., Amaya-Jackson, L., Glienke, B., Blythe, M., … & Weinberger, M. (2020). Improving the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices in community mental health organizations: a study protocol for a matched-pair cluster randomized pilot study of the Collaborative Organizational Approach to Selecting and Tailoring Implementation Strategies (COAST-IS). Implementation science communications, 1, 1–13. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43058-020-00009-5
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Mental Health Programs for Adolescent Population
Zuleika Rosa
Walden University
SOCW-6311
09/21/2024
Mental Health Programs for Adolescent Population
The proposed program aims at preparing professionals to deliver optimal standard of mental healthcare for adolescents in Florida. This will help in the early detection, prevention, and management of mental health disorders among youths aged between 12 and 18 years. Consequently, the program will consist of such aspects as individual and group counseling, family support services as well as school based interventions so as to adequately deal with mental health which affects adolescents in the Florida region.
Criteria for enrollment in the program will include early onset of symptoms, low socio-economic status, and family history of mental disorder. For the youths, who experience substantial stressors in their everyday life such as academic stress, social maladaptation, or family problems, it will be applied. In particular, these groups are targeted because early intervention is critical to prevent the mental conditions from evolving into more severe disorders in adulthood (Mitchell et al., 2019).
As a way of strengthening the credibility of the overall information in advocating for this program, two main approaches would be adopted. First, telephone and web-based surveys could be conducted in Florida among adolescents, parents, and school staff to identify a quantity of youths with mental health problems and the extent to which they can gain necessary services (Wang et al., 2023).
Secondly, conducting focus group interviews with mental healthcare providers who have prior experience dealing with adolescents would provide diverse, qualitative data. Such sessions would focus on issues and programs relating to the youths in Florida, their experiences and the efficiency of the existing programs, and possibly efficiency enhancement mechanisms (Mitchell et al., 2019). By combining the perspectives of those directly affected (adolescents and their families) with the expertise of professionals in the field, a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the mental health landscape for Florida's adolescent population can be achieved, providing a solid foundation for the proposed program's development and implementation.
References
Mitchell, B. S., Kern, L., & Conroy, M. A. (2019). Supporting students with emotional or behavioral disorders: State of the field. Behavioral Disorders, 44(2), 70-84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0198742918816518
Wang, S., Li, Q., Lu, J., Ran, H., Che, Y., Fang, D., … & Xiao, Y. (2023). Treatment rates for Mental disorders among children and adolescents: a systematic review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 6(10), e2338174-e2338174. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.38174
