Program Development Plan

Program Development Plan

Introduction

The context of mental health counseling pertains to the process of assessing the mental disorders and treating them through the psycho-educational counseling. A mental health counseling agency encompasses of an institutional setup that attempts to serve the mental health needs of the prevailing community. It generally pertains to address the mental disorders prevailing amongst the individuals in the society, and therefore, contribute to the overall functioning of the society. The foundation of mental health counseling revolves around the competence and skills of professional mental health counselors who enhance the probability of eradicating mental disorders from the society, as well as, normalize the dynamics of world and relevant perceptions to it.

Establishing a mental health counseling center encompasses of several steps that pertain to analysis of the community, in terms of, demographics, cultural facets, needs assessment, as well as, the premises of overall societal functioning. The Mental health counseling agency discussed in the paper pertains to a small local community prevailing in San Diego, in the city of Coronado. The population of the city amounts to 25000 people. The agency would look into reasons for mental disorders, as well as, the causes that are causing mental illness on individual level. It would attempt to meet the needs of society through skills of counselors and medical practitioners (Prior, 1993).

The Background of the agency

The section describes the statistics of community. The city comprises of the area from San Diego bay to the downtown of San Diego. The city is one of the most expensive places upon the face of the blue planet. The psychological counseling and treatment of mental disorders cost enormous amount to people. Therefore, the rationale of initiating Mental Health Counseling agency for the community is to initiate an institutional set up for the mental health of the population of community without costing them much. In addition to that, the city has a few mental health counseling education; each with one or very small number of practitioners to help people. The city needs a set up with a colossal scope. The set up should be able to cater to the community needs, as well as, fulfill the requirements of individual mental problems (Lee & Richardson, 1991).

Community analysis

The Community encompasses of population of the Coronado, 'The Crown City'. As reported by the US Census, the city population is 24,697. The population encompasses of several races with 81.2% of white Americans, whereas, the rest of it encompasses of African Americans, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Latino, as well as, Native American. There are several facets of community perspectives; they are discussed as under;

Diversity

The premise of diversity pertains to mingling of people with different cultural backgrounds from different regions of the world. The studies reveal that the community of Coronado is extremely diverse and multi-faceted. The city operates smoothly through the issues related to diversity. However, the premise of diversity pertain to several subsets of problems to three basic areas; they are

The race and ethnicity

The city population encompasses of different ...