The World Health Organization (WHO) reports in 2010 revealed a high prevalence of mental health conditions among populations worldwide. Community mental health care programs comprise of practices and principles that promote mental health. Increasingly, these practices advocate for platform interventions that are community-based and cognitive behavioral therapies that build on goals and strengths of individuals who experience mental illness. In this regard, this paper discusses how components of an effective community preventive program relate to mental health workers and preventive planners.
Community mental health care programs encompass a population approach in order to implement mental health interventions on a wider platform. The programs target low-income and medium-income communities that have insufficient access to resources for mental health care (Thornicroft, Deb and Henderson, 2016). For instance, community preventive programs apply evidence-based lawful regulations such as high alcohol taxation and minimum drinking age to restrict high-risk behavior in communities (Thornicroft, Deb and Henderson, 2016). Also, they integrate mental health promotion strategies for stress reduction into school programs and safety policies to ensure a healthy community. Therefore, mental health workers have to identify mentally suffocating populations to implement effective preventive measures.
Additionally, community mental health care embraces cognitive behavioral theories that focus on individual development. According to (Newman, 2013) mental conditions are a consequent of chronic physical conditions like diseases; thus, an occurrence of a disease like HIV may interfere with treatment procedures of such patients due to depression or anxiety. The cognitive behavioral theory (CBT) model assesses individuals and provide ways that involve individuals engaging in healthy behaviors that give them a sense of mastery and better mood states (Newman, 2013). In this essence, mental health specialists are challenged to understand the CBT model in order to understand clients’ problematic behaviors and develop cognations.
