Inside Health Care Podcast With Paul Gionfriddo From Mental Health America

In the Inside Health Care Podcast with Paul Gionfriddo from Mental Health America, the issues of the quality of mental health care in America and the lack of preventative care are discussed. The podcast began by describing America’s mental health care system as “not good enough” (National Committee for Quality Assurance, 2019). According to Jurkowski (2019), mental health can be defined as “the successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity, from early childhood to late life” (p. 174). Given this definition provided by Jurkowski, it seems that the definition of mental health places accountability on the person

I find this extremely relevant, especially in my current field of practice. As a CPS worker, I work long-term with children and families and, given the traumatic nature of some of the families’ histories, children are often in need of mental health services. I’ve found on several occasions that providers don’t seem to take children’s trauma and mental health as seriously as I think they should. In the podcast, “internalizing factors” that may lead to mental health concerns or suicide are discussed, and among these factors are sleeping problems, having trouble “playing by the rules,” and attention problems (NCQA, 2019). Hearing this was especially informative given a lot of the children I work with have these exact behaviors and concerns. This information has implications for direct practice, as social workers should be informed of some of these internalizing factors in order to best serve their clients. Education on this topic is lacking greatly in my experience. I appreciated the podcast’s point about suicidal ideations being a late-stage indicator of suicide rather than a time where mental health care should