Lesson 1: Foundations of Community Mental Health and Illness


Attention

Community Mental Health is about COMMUNITY!


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Define community, community mental health, mental health, and mental illness.
  • Describe the history of mental illness.
  • Explain how community affects mental health.

Teaching

Reading

Read Chapter 1

Lecture

Community mental health, while conceptually a new idea, has always been at the heart of mental health, and mental illness.

Reading chapter one in the required textbook will identify the history and evolution of this concept.

Each Lesson in this course is going to be outlined in a similar manner as to this one.

Each Lesson will have Learning Outcomes, a Teaching section, and a list of Assessment activites that you have to complete. These may include quizzes (questions that you enter directly into Bb through an online quiz), Assignments (these are papers that you create in a word processor and upload to a "Drop Box"), and Discussions (these are online forums where I will ask you to consider and discuss delicate and controversial topics.

In addition to the Lessons you will find additional quizzes on the Chapters in the textbook, Special Assignments that relate to Essential Learning Outcomes for this course (an institution-wide initiative), and a set of assignments called MHRT/C Portfolio.

The MHRT/C Portfolio assignments are the ones that will have you produce work that you can then collect into your professional portfolio in order to document your learning in regard to the State of Maine's Learning Outcomes for the MHRT/C.

The Portfolio aspect of this class (and all Mental Health classes) will entail that you develop an online web-page based portfolio with links to your graded documents and resources (as outlined in those individual assignments) using the tools that we provide for you or using tools that you are already familiar with.

There is an ongoing discussion in the MHRT/C Portfolio section of the course where the specifics of these assignments and how to create your online portfolio will be discussed.

It is vital that you participate in EVERY aspect of the course.


Assessment

Lesson 1 Quiz

  1. Consider the protective factors that a community brings to the field of mental health. In light of the risk factors that originate in a community, discuss why a field like community mental health exists. The community is dynamic, so are the origins and resilience of the factors in the face of mental illness.
  2. If physical illness is treated as a "predictable" conseqence of heredity, family history, etc., and life-style choices, like career and environmental exposures, why does illness that is mental carry a negative connotation? Heredity may equally play a role here, as can life-style choices. Where does the difference in perception come from?

Possible Class Discussion

Participate in the Ice-breaker Online Discussion. Introduce yourself and get to know your fellow students a bit.