Our Third Meeting

During class, our group developed a list of stakeholders we would like to talk with to gather information, as well as began developing open-ended interview questions to use when we talk with these stakeholders. Our list of stakeholders includes: administrators at mental health facilities (such as Primary Children’s Behavioral Health and UNI), therapists who work with children and adolescents, psychiatric technicians, school teachers, principals, religious leaders, parents, children, and adolescents. The open-ended questions are: (1) How do you believe/find that children or adolescents with mental health problems are treated? (2) How does stigma affect children/adolescents…? We are beginning to reach out to the stakeholders at our workplaces and/or practicum settings. Chase and Robert talked about reaching out to the stakeholders at UNI, Scott talked about reaching out to the stakeholders at his practicum with Wasatch School District, Mary Beth talked about reaching out to NAMI, and I (Anikka) am beginning to reach out to stakeholders at my practicum at Primary Children’s Behavioral Health. Some specific updates: I (Anikka) spoke with a psychiatric technician and a residential administrator at my practicum who had very different views on where stigma for adolescents comes from, but both agreed that it is a real issue that our clients face. Mary Beth reached out to NAMI and found out about a program called Youth Move, which is a local program with about 35 members ages 12-25 that works on local community and policy projects. Mary Beth found out when their meetings are and at our next group discussion we will discuss attending one of their meetings and learning about their projects.