As mental health and children’s health enthusiast, I planned my project around these two junctures. Children are easily marginalized as they do not know how to express themselves fully. They also lack the financial avenues to take care of themselves and solely depend on their parents and guardians to solve their issues. Without a parental figure, the child would be doomed to their problems. Therefore, providing health measures based on children’s mental and emotional lives is essential. The project is intended to take place in one and a half months, where a research base would be found and effectively use research materials to see how the project can help children prevent and treat mental health issues.
Mental health issues are prevalent among people of all ages. Mental illness is a range of conditions that negatively affect how someone acts, moods, and how they think. These conditions range from bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, sleep paralysis, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and insanity. There are numerous in-patient and out-patient facilities set up in the United States of America to help people manage their mental health issues. These issues are prevalent today, notable, and can be viewed as diseases, thus requiring quality response services. It is worth noting that children and adolescents are affected by mental health disorders from a young age, which requires proper attention from parents and guardians.
The target audience of my project was children and adolescents, as mental disorders are prevalent among them. Children and adolescents form part of the large population of people with mental health disorders. From 14, 50 percent of American kids develop persistent mental illnesses that worsen and evolve. One in every five children experiences severe mental disorders, which gradually improve (Bruine & Wandi, 2020). A primary cause of mental disorders in children can be a lack of a stable background. A case in point is a child from a family with conflicts, and they are likely to develop mental health issues such as anxiety and bipolar disorder. People must understand that children undergo mental health issues, and triggers that deteriorate their mental health and that early detection and treatment of the disorders would help prevent more severe impacts of the health concern.
Additionally, from my experience relating to children, notable target symptoms show that children and adolescents are experiencing mental health disorders. Low emotions and a loss of self-worth are early indicators of the disease. The children subsequently withdraw from their classmates and become wholly closed. Some children may experience significant weight loss, increased erratic sleeping habits, and a lack of appetite. Later-onset symptoms of the diseases include hostile conduct toward others, substance misuse to induce a trance state, and suicidal ideation. These illnesses negatively impact children’s social, emotional, and academic lives. According to reports, youngsters suffering from melancholy and anxiety perform worse in school (Bruine & Wandi, 2020). Nonetheless, some teens commit themselves, and the suicide rate is high. Depression and anxiety deprive teenagers of significance in life, and they would rather die than go through mental anguish. These specific signs show that the child may be experiencing a mental health disorder.
The reason for choosing the topic of mental health is due to the experience I gained while working at the Chicago Children’s Behavioral Center. The Chicago Center is one of the most successful and promising centers for providing care to children to improve their quality of life. Each form of pharmaceutical, personal, academic, social, or household therapy enables children to manage their mental illnesses while still integrating into society. The facility is open 24 hours a day and offers online support, allowing consumers to request assistance. The center’s specialists deal with behavior, autism, bipolar illness, depression, and anxiety. Services for PTSD, OCD, and postpartum depression are also provided. In addition, the Chicago Children’s Center at AMITA Health Institute of Behavioral Medicine serves children aged 3 to 17. Additionally, the center provides the following services: evaluation and referral, mental evaluations, psychological evaluations, several forms of therapy, education, and treatment adherence. From my experience with the Chicago Children’s Behavioral Center, I created this project centered on children and their mental health.
My presentation’s location was at the Chicago Children’s Behavioral Center, and I got permission from the administrator, Aliza Hernandez, to present my project. Before presenting my project, I used word of mouth to tell people about my upcoming presentation, which would get people to see what I had prepared and learned about the concerning issues in children’s health. Additionally, I posted flyers around the facility on the date and time of the presentation to create more awareness. Instead of presenting it to the facility’s board of directors only, there was a need to talk to the general public for faster transmission of the message. The presentation consisted of a PowerPoint presentation that contained text and colorful objects that would attract people’s attention. The presentation was short, consisting of 12 pages, but was clear and concise. Additionally, the presentation contained graphs and other statistical data tabulated from data gathered and others pulled from secondary sources to have an evidence-based and factual presentation.
The presentation shows that the content focused on improving mental health by providing various treatment and preventive approaches, including exposure and response prevention therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Exposure and response prevention therapy can be integrated through positive reinforcement. A child gets a reward for doing something or being corrected in a way that does not diminish their self-esteem when they make a mistake (Bruine & Wandi, 2020). Additionally, in cognitive-behavioral therapy, a child is taught how to acknowledge a situation and change their mindset to accommodate a positive mindset. According to Bruine and Wandi, therapy can include methods for dealing with the reasons and avoiding the tendencies that lead to depression by looking at the pattern of variables (2020). Antidepressants assist with these because they raise serotonin levels in the body, making the mindless alert and reducing the number of ideas that pass through it. Reciting affirmations is frequently used by psychiatrists to mold one’s ideas into positive ones. Empathy, love, and positivism are used in a humanistic approach to the depressed individual. These efforts should help in reducing mental health issues among children and adolescents.
The project’s performance exceeded its expectations of providing ways to simplify procedures for analyzing psychological disorders. Instead of seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist, which is costly for an average household in the United States of America, people can learn how to prevent mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. Additionally, there are ways to illustrate on how to treat the disorders, such as personal affirmations, love, and having a peaceful household. The population’s response was good as they showed contentment in understanding ways to prevent and treat these disorders. Nonetheless, I am satisfied that getting the venue was a good thing, as most of the people there are concerned with children’s well-being. The three things that went well with the presentation were the vast audience turnout, venue availability, and audience cooperation when submitting the presentation. For future recommendations, the presentation would base its research on severe mental issues such as autism, its prevalence, early symptoms, community awareness of autism, and how to live with a child with autism.
National resources such as Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, the American Psychological Association, and the National Institute of Mental Health create awareness of mental health issues. According to the Healthy People 2020 Goals, one of the challenges in mental health is societal stigmatization that prevents people from accessing treatment (People, 2010). However, these resources provide online and free access to the general public to spread awareness of the impending mental conditions around the United States of America. Moreover, having someone talk to the people on the state and local levels creates a personalized form of information. A case in point is how I presented the project at the Chicago Children’s Behavioral Center with statistics related to people living in the Chicago area. The information helps them better understand their condition among them and get a tailored system that assists them in preventing mental issues. Access to resources and having a personalized avenue to share about mental health issues prevents stigmatization and helps people access required assistance.
References
Bruine B., and Wändi D. (2020). Age differences in COVID-19 risk perceptions and mental health: Evidence from a national US survey conducted in March 2020. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.
People, H., & US Department of Health and Human Services. (2010). Healthy people 2020. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US Department of Health and Human Services.