Case Assignment The topic of the Case assignment is on the issues of the rise of

Question

Case Assignment The topic of the Case assignment is on the issues of the rise of mental health issues in the prison setting. The video link listed below will help you start thinking about the key issues related to the Case Assignment topic: Institutionalized: Mental Health Behind Bars [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fQ50a-m92Y (23:04) In the Case Assignment, you will then write a 5-8 page research paper (excluding cover and reference pages). You must cite at least 3-4 resources from the Touro library to support your arguments in the research paper. Your paper will address the following topics: Identify and explain the legal, financial and social reasons why there has been a significant rise in mental health issues in prison settings (Module 4: Forensic Psychology) Describe the methods of providing mental health care in prison settings. What are some of the challenges of providing mental health care in prison settings? (Module 2: Clinical Psychology) Describe and explain how educational psychology concepts can be used to help the rehabilitation process of the incarcerated individuals and aid in their reintegration process with their local community upon release from prison. (Module 3: Educational Psychology) Writing Guidelines for Case Assignment: You must use proper psychology terminology in this essay. Do not exceed 8 pages in this assignment, excluding title and references pages. The Case Assignment must be written in APA style format (ex. double- spaced with 1-inch margins and typed in 12-point Times New Roman). 1 / 2


Essays should be proofread for spelling and grammar mistakes.
Writing Resources (Use as Needed):
· APA Style. Retrieved from
http://apastyle.apa.org/
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· Latest APA Research Paper | APA Format and APA Citations Made Easy
[Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gEt5RUr5H8
(6:00)
· How to Write an APA style paper using Microsoft Word. Retrieved from
http://www.bccc.edu/cms/lib05/MD11000285/Centricity/domain/99/instruction/apa/How
_to_Write_an_APA_Paper_6th_Edition_with_Microsoft_Word_2007.pdf

.

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Explanation / Answer

Assignment

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Over the course of your life, if you experience mental health problems, your thinking, mood, and behavior could be affected. Many factors contribute to mental health problems, including:

45% people are suffering from this issue

MENTAL HEALTH AND PRISONS

The Challenges

1. Mental disorders occur at high rates in all countries of the world. An estimated 450 million people world wide suffer from mental or behavioural disorders

2 . These disorders are especially prevalent in prison populations

3 . The disproportionately high rate of mental disorders in prisons is related to several factors: the widespread misconception that all people with mental disorders are a danger to the public; the general intolerance of many societies to difficult or disturbing behaviour; the failure to promote treatment, care and rehabilitation, and, above all, the lack of, or poor access to, mental health services in many countries. Many of these disorders may be present before admission to prison, and may be further exacerbated by the stress of imprisonment. However, mental disorders may also develop during imprisonment itself as a consequence of prevailing conditions and also possibly due to torture or other human rights violations. Prisons are bad for mental healthThere are factors in many prisons that have negative effects on mental health, including: overcrowding, various forms of violence, enforced solitude or conversely, lack of privacy, lack of meaningful activity, isolation from social networks, insecurity about future prospects (work, relationships, etc), and inadequate health services, especially mental health services, in prisons. The increased risk of suicide in prisons (often related to depression) is, unfortunately, one common manifestation of the cumulative effects of these factors. Prisons are sometimes used as dumping grounds for people with mental disorders. In some countries, people with severe mental disorders are inappropriately locked up in prisons simply because of the lack of mental health services. People with substance abuse disorders or people who, at least in part due to a mental disorder, have committed minor offences are often sent to prison rather than treated for their disorder. These disorders therefore continue to go unnoticed, undiagnosed and untreated.

Describe the methods of providing mental health care in prison settings

Beginning in 1984 and continuing across New York State at the present time, a Forensic Suicide Prevention Crisis Service Project is being implemented. This project has been successful in reducing the number of completed suicides. Clinicians should become familiar with this program, and may be asked to become trained to instruct the program to current staff or new recruits. An effective suicide prevention and risk management program consists of the following:

Mental Health Screening/Evaluation: Policies and procedures for performing screenings and evaluations during and after intake vary with each facility. Guidelines and standards are available by nationally recognized organizations to assist facilities with developing a protocol for mental health screenings and evaluations. (See page 2–10 for more information.)

Medication Management: The prescription, monitoring and dispensing of psychotropic medication occurs under the supervision of the facility psychiatrist. Communication between the jail medical and mental health services should occur to ensure that each department has awareness of the name and dosage of all medications. Both corrections and mental/medical staff should be trained on the side effects as well as signs of potential hoarding or “cheeking” of medication.

Case Management: Case management includes efforts to coordinate and provide continuity of mental health care for detainees upon entry, and during jail sentence, and to provide linkages to community based services upon release. This may include individual counseling, meetings with family, referrals to appropriate resources and entitlements. In fact, it has been found that jail-based case management increases the probability that inmates will access mental health services upon release. (Finn-Will, 1996)

Mental Health Observation Units: These units provide special housing and services for inmates with mental illness who may not be appropriate to live in general population housing. Due to psychiatric symptoms, these inmates may pose a threat to the general population, or more commonly, may be more vulnerable. The length of stay varies, with the primary goal to triage symptoms for return to general population. The coordination and programming within these units requires collaboration between both correctional and mental health personnel; thus, staff should be dually trained.

Access to Inpatient Psychiatric Care: Often the mental health care needed by an inmate goes beyond the scope of the services available at the jail. Thus, clinicians should be aware of the policies and procedures for securing inpatient mental health care. For more specific information on the mental hygiene law and designation procedures, please refer to Chapters 6 and 7.

Discharge Planning: Case managers and clinicians should assist inmates with obtaining links to services upon release. This includes assisting the inmate with the following depending on the individual’s needs:

To ensure that these services are being accessed, discharge planning should also include follow-up with the inmate or community service provider to make certain that the inmate is linked with the appropriate service/resource. In fact, the greater the intensity of these services after release, the lower the likelihood the person will return to jail. (Finn-Will, 1996)

Advanced Directives

An advance directive is a document which indicates an individual’s wishes for his or her own mental and/or physical health care. Advance directives enable individuals to participate in their own physical and mental health care, to ensure that their choices are honored if they are determined by a physician to be incapable of making treatment decisions. There are different types of advance directives, including a health care proxy, a living will, and a do not resuscitate (DNR) order.

With a health care proxy , an individual appoints a specific person to make mental and physical treatment decisions for them, should they no longer be able to make those decisions for themselves. A living will is a written statement which provides specific instructions on future healthcare treatment to be carried out if one looses capacity to make such decisions. Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) Orders are verbal or written requests made to medical personnel to not attempt emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if one’s breathing or heartbeat stops.

Individuals cannot make decisions regarding whether or not to undergo psychiatric hospitalization in an advance directive; New York State Mental Hygiene Law governs the admission of patients to a hospital for psychiatric care.

A properly executed advance directive must be properly signed, dated and witnessed. Any two people 18 years or older can be witnesses, but if an individual is an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital and wishes to complete an advance directive, one of the witnesses must be a psychiatrist, and the other may not be an employee of the hospital.

Although incarceration in a jail severely limits an inmate’s ability to direct his/her mental health care, jail mental health and correctional staff may want to consider adopting a modified advanced directive approach. Staff may consider obtaining information from an inmate with mental illness about effective emergency management interventions at a time when the inmate is without acute symptoms. This may provide both mental health and corrections staff with valuable information about how to effectively respond to that inmate should he/she develop acute symptoms which threaten his safety and/or safety of the facility.

Work Release and Vocational Training Program Challenges Prison work release programs face many challenges in assisting prisoners in their transition from a world of prison life into a world where they are a productive part of a community. This section introduces the challenges prisoners face in terms of educational levels, environmental factors, and substance abuse. Education One challenge work release programs encounter is increasing the education level of prisoners. Prisoners typically have lower education levels than the national norm. These low education levels make it difficult to provide inmates with the necessary job skills to gain employment, where they can receive sufficient pay to support themselves and possibly their families (Bushway, 2003). Examining the issue of education through social learning theory points out that low education levels among prisoners exist because many prisoners had role models who had low education levels. The application of social learning theory would suggest that prison work-release programs provide prisoners with role models, who have education levels that meet the national norm. Additionally, a mentor who has achieved these educational goals could enhance inmates’ prospects for success by increasing self-efficacy. Goals and selfefficacy can be affected by interactions with others (Goto & Martin, 2009) Environment Another challenge work release programs face is many prisoners come from communities where the entire community atmosphere is one of being involved with illegal work (Wilson, 5 1987). In this environment, the prisoner’s association with their peers may have been one of differential association which produced deviant behavior. After release from prison, ex-inmates may be returning to the same community and peers who enabled their previous illegal behavior (Listwan, Cullen, & Latessa, 2005). Social Learning Theory states people imitate other people, with whom they have close contact; therefore, close contact with peers who have demonstrated criminal behavior is a contributing environmental factor which lead to the prisoner’s original criminal behavior. When ex-inmates return to an environment where they have close contact with peers who demonstrate criminal behavior, that contact could lead to recidivism. To overcome this situation, prison work release programs would need to place ex-inmates in communities, where legal work is the norm. Aftercare is an important step in reducing recidivism.

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