1. Focusing On Community Capacity
1.2 Define and
Analyze the Issue
Often
the issues that bring people together are those that are initially
viewed as 'problems'. Problems are a part of life for individuals,
families and communities. Communities, like individuals, work
to solve their own problems. The process of analyzing those
problems helps in their solution.
Before
jumping into any attempts to solve community problems, it’s
important to spend some time thinking about the nature of
mental health issues and problems, and to address several
key questions: Why has a certain problem developed? What is
the underlying cause of the problem? What kind of community
action will help solve the problem?
What Does it Mean
to Define and Analyze the Issue?
Analyzing
community mental health concerns is a way of thinking through
a particular mental health problem or issue before acting
on a solution. It starts with looking for possible reasons
why a problem exists, and then checking out whether those
reasons are true. Then, and only then, is it time
to start identifying possible solutions and implementing the
best ones.
Stated
simply, a problem can be defined as the difference between
what is, and what might or should be. We often have a strong
internal sense of when something is wrong and should be corrected
- a feeling of distress or injustice. Knowing what to do to
solve the problem is often less obvious.
If we
spend some time defining and analyzing community problems
-- gathering information and thinking about their root causes
-- it helps us to clarify and understand those problems so
that we can come up with more effective and appropriate solutions.
This is
especially true in the case of mental health promotion. Because
the factors that determine mental
health are so complex, it’s particularly important to spend
some time defining the community mental health issue, and
analyzing its various aspects, before taking action. A careful
consideration of the causes and parameters of the problem
will help to lay the foundation for an effective solution.
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Why Should You
Define and Analyze The Issue?
There
are several key reasons why it’s a good idea to do some analysis
before setting to work to promote mental health in your community.
To
better identify what the problem or issue is:
Before
looking for solutions, you’ll want to clarify just what is
the problem. Unless you are clear, it’s
hard to move forward.
|
In
the Inclusion project, community members identified
that people with mental illness are often excluded from
meaningful participation in the life of the community.
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To
understand what is at the heart of the problem:
A problem
is usually caused by something; what is that something? And
often the problem we see
is actually a symptom of something else. You need to get a
complete picture.
| Persistent
stigma, and over-reliance on the formal service system
are two factors at the heart of the exclusion of people
with mental illness from community life. |
To
determine the barriers and resources associated with addressing
the problem:
It’s good
practice and planning to anticipate barriers and obstacles
before they happen. By doing so,
you can often get around them. Analyzing community mental
health issues can help you to understand
and find the community resources you will need to tackle the
problem.
| The
barriers to inclusion included: fear, prejudice, and lack
of understanding and education. The
resources that the Inclusion project drew on included:
people’s positive experiences with
friends and family, and the enthusiasm and motivation
of certain community members. |
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To
develop the best action steps for addressing the issue:
Having
a plan of action based on a careful analysis of the issue
is always better than moving forward
without a clear idea of where you’re headed.
In each
of the sample projects, people came together to analyze the
situation - to ask themselves and each other why a certain
problem was occurring, or why a particular mental health issue
had become a concern. They did this before they attempted
to propose a course of action or implement a solution to the
situation in the community. Here are their stories:
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The
idea for the Helping Skills grew out of the CMHA Newfoundland
and Labrador Division’s project called "A Needs
Assessment for Community Self-Help". The project
involved people in 27 communities that had been affected
by the northern cod moratorium, telling about the impact
the moratorium was having on their well-being and that
of their families and communities.
What
people said was that while many of them were coping
adequately so far with the support of their family and
friends, there was a lot of anxiety and some serious
distress about the sudden, mass unemployment caused
by the moratorium. Everyone was worried about the future
and how their
communities would survive, and everyone saw the need
for more sources of help and support as the situation
got worse. Where mental health services existed, they
were stretched to the
limit, and in many communities there were no such resources
at all.
CMHA,
however, recognized that the need being expressed was
not so much for psychiatric services as for support
and help with the natural process of adjusting to major
loss and change. The Division responded by developing
a proposal which reflected the issue and suggested ways
in which it could be addressed at the local level. The
proposal was submitted and accepted, and the
Helping Skills project was born.
The
idea for the Inclusion in Community project came from
the input of people with mental illness from all across
Canada who had participated in national consultations
and evaluations of mental
health programs. Time and again, consumer/survivors
expressed the idea that although formal
mental health services are important, they are not the
only, nor the most important support that
help people with mental illness to recover and lead
fulfilling lives in the community.
By
focusing exclusively on the provision of formal mental
health services, the important role that non-formal
supports (such as housing, recreation, family and friends)
play in the lives of people who have experienced mental
health problems has often been neglected. People expressed
the need to participate in and have access to generic
community supports and services. Taking an active part
in the activities and facilities offered by the community
gives people a sense of belonging -- a need that is
shared by everyone, regardless of the presence or absence
of a psychiatric label.
The
Inclusion in Community project, like Helping Skills,
was organized and administered through CMHA
(although this time it was at the national, rather than
the provincial, level) but grew out of the
ideas expressed by consumer/survivors themselves. They
"named" the problem - the need to provide
more opportunities for people with mental illness to
connect with the broader community - and suggested ways
of supporting communities to work toward solutions.
The
communities that implemented the project focused their
energy on getting a wide range of people involved, and
developing a strategy that was appropriate to their
particular situation, while the National office of CMHA
looked after many of the administrative duties, such
as reporting to the funding agency and managing the
budget.
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How Do You Define
And Analyze the Issue?
In each
mental health promotion initiative, the process of defining
and analyzing the issue reflects the community context, and
will therefore be unique to that particular setting.
There
are, however, some general guidelines that might be helpful
to a variety of groups who are interested in defining and
analyzing mental health issues in their communities. In the
tools section at the end of
this chapter you’ll find a guide to get you started analyzing
mental health issues in your own community.
2.
Developing the Community >
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