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Essential Facts About Mental Health Advocacy Colorado

By Minnie Whitley


Mental health advocacy includes among other things the many actions designed to introduce change to attitudinal and structural barriers to accomplishing outcomes of psychological well being that are positive. The concept is a relatively new one whose initial development was for reduction of stigma and also discrimination. Moreover, it was supposed to promote rights of persons with mental disorders. In looking at the concept of mental health advocacy Colorado residents should know certain pieces of information.

In the last 30 or so years, there has been a better definition of the needs and rights of persons with mental disorders. As a result of this the families and hence consumers got to develop organizations to assist in making them to be heard in a better way. Sometime after that, they were joined by nongovernmental organizations, associations of health workers and also governments. Over time, the support services have broadened to include rights of persons with less severe conditions. Even the general population has been considered.

There are several actions that are associated with these support services. Examples of these are training, dissemination of information, education, counseling, raising awareness, mutual help and denouncing. Despite these actions, there still are barriers that are associated with implementation of some actions. There are sections of the world where mental disorders have not been treated with the same seriousness as physical health. Instead, such people with these conditions have been ignored massively.

There is only a small number of people with this condition and still receive the most basic treatment. The remaining people who are the majority are subjected to stigma and discrimination. A good number of communities faced with factors which present risks to psychological health. Some of the experienced barriers are poor quality services in hospitals, lack of employment opportunities and stigma.

Through stigmatization, people become deeply compromised socially and also discredited. Persons with serious mental disorders have a different appearance owing to the side effects. There are lots of misconceptions about such people. For instance, that they are lazy, violent, unreliable, irresponsible, with no conscience and worthless. Other people also consider them to be unsafe, unable to sustain families and stupid. The misconceptions vary and individuals will be subjected to different ones. It is these misconceptions that bring about stigma.

The majority of the support initiatives have lead to positive results despite the many obstacles. Despite the fact that science is still to prove that such support indeed improves mental health in people, reports of positive outcomes in many countries have been received. Among these positive outcomes are placing the issues on government agendas, making changes to laws, protecting rights of people with such conditions and improving policies and practices of various institutions.

In a number of countries, the support has changed the way in which affected persons are regarded and treated by the society. The consumers are then able to express their visions of services they need. Furthermore, they are increasingly able to make the right decisions that concern treatment and also other matters affecting them.

The role of consumers and families as concerns support is diverse. Some of these include improvement of legislations and policies and involvement in development and planning. Furthermore, they also mediate, defend and counsel other consumers.




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