Write an essay exploring a topic that is relevant to mental health and wellbeing

Assessment 1: Essay about a contemporary mental health practice topic
Weighting: 50%Word count: 1750 words (+10%)Due date: Please see unit plan for the due date.
Unit Learning Outcomes being assessed:
1 Demonstrate the mental health strategies required to manage a range of theoretical and clinical situations for clients experiencing mental illness
4 Describe the recovery orientated approach to working with people with a mental health condition, their families and carers
5 Discuss the importance of cultural and social sensitivities from a global perspective in relation to mental health issues

Task: The aim of this task is to write an essay exploring a topic that is relevant to mental health and wellbeing. This will enable you to demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the topic area and how you can use a recovery orientated approach to work with the person.
You will need to:
Choose an area of mental health that is of interest to you (there is a separate document in the Assessment 1: Essay folder on Blackboard with examples if you would like some ideas).
Explore your chosen mental health topic in depth by searching the literature and reading research papers about your topic.
Examine the impact of your chosen topic on the wellbeing of service users (consumers/clients/patients) by reading peer-reviewed literature and research papers that explores the impact ideally from the persons (patient, service users, consumer) perspective.
Describe how you would use a recovery focused approach to work with the person (and their family).
Discuss strategies to support the persons mental health and how these that could be used to work collaboratively with the person, their family and/or carers while respecting cultural and social sensitivities.
The details below may help you to structure your assignment. Note you do not have to follow this structure it is to give you an idea about how your essay may look.
Provide an introduction to your chosen contemporary practice topic including how/why your topic is relevant from a global perspective.
Summarise why it is important for nurses and/or midwives to have an understanding of your chosen topic.
Explain why your chosen topic is important from the perspective of service users, their families and carers.
Address what strategies are available to support the person, their families and carers.
Discuss how a recovery orientated approach can be used to help the nurse and/or midwife work collaboratively with the person, their families and carers while respecting cultural and social needs?
You should conclude your essay by identifying what you have learnt and how you will practice differently in the future as a result of your learning from writing this essay.
Support:
Please ensure you are familiar with all the resources in the finding help zone on Blackboard. It is good to look at these at the beginning of the unit to help you plan any support you need. Looking at the feedback from previous essays can help you plan your development ready for writing this essay.
From week 3, the unit coordinator will run a drop-in session to answer any questions or queries you have. Please pop in if you can as other students have found this helpful in preparing their assignment. The sessions will be recorded and a brief summary of the content given but due to the wide range of potential areas covered it is better if you can attend.
Please make use of the discussion board on Blackboard for assessment 1.
Other important information:
You must support your work to show wider reading and demonstrate critical thinking in your discussion (not description). If you are unclear what is required you should spend some time looking at the library resources.
References should be mainly from academic journals and you should ensure they are the most recent publications on the topic. It may be that you are using older references and in this case you should justify your decision to include them in your work.
It is important that you appropriately support your work with a range of references to show your reading. This also helps the marker understand how you are developing your knowledge and applying evidence-based practice to your work.
At this stage you should be able to reference correctly please refer to the ECU APA referencing guide and use the library resources if you are unsure.
Anonymity and confidentiality must be maintained and therefore if you choose to a topic identified from your practice experience you need to ensure you do not use any identifying features, personal information or organisational details.
The essay should be written in the 3rd person except when you are reflecting on your own experience or identifying your personal learning and the impact on your future practice.
Please review the SNM guidelines for assignment presentation, structure and submission.
Marks will be awarded as per the SNM marking rubric for this unit.