INT204 Service For Youth Experiencing Mental Illness Assessment 4 Answer

Introduction 

The community services provided in the context of Australian economy nurture and sustain the functioning of families, individuals, and groups with the intention of ensuring the wellbeing, safety, and health of the citizens. The essay is envisaged with the portrayal of Personal and Social Support services covered under the Community Service Sector rendering assistance to the Youth who are confronting mental health issues or illness while the sector in parallel manages several challenges that emerge in this sector (AIHW, 2020). The leadership styles are also discussed in this portrayal of the sector, which suitably addresses the management challenges. The essay emphasizes the partnerships which could be established to focus on the identified management challenges. Innovation in the community services poses equal importance which helps to mitigate several management challenges while encompassing assistance for the Youth. The conclusion of the essay summarizes the fundamental and integrated analysis of the given topic.

Discussion

The Personal and Social Support services are elucidated in the composition while outlining the basic leadership styles incorporated to address the management challenges encountered by the community service sector. The Priority Area 3 developed by the National Action Plan for the Health of Children and Young People (NAPHCYP) assembled the data which iterates that more than one in five young people conforms to the criteria of possessing severe mental health issues (National Action Plan, 2020). The assumptions of these mental health issues materialize from the social determinants which state that the Youth belonging from homeless categories, with low household income, with humble family educational background and those who are devoid of employment develop a severe level of psychological distress that requires to be addressed with professional support, detection of the cause and early interventions. The Personal and Social Support services offered by the Australian Government fulfils the requirement of handling the young people who feel depressed, have mental illness or disorders, and experiences the thoughts of self-infliction or suicide.

Discussion on the service sector and identifying the management challenges of the service sectors

The Personal and Social Support provided by the Government and other private agencies in Australia. Mental illness among the Youth is addressed by the Mental Health Community Support Services (MHCSS) by each state which is distinct from the clinical or medical support. The community services support sector plays a vital role in assisting the Youth suffering from severe mental illness, depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric disability in their recovery process (Report on Government Services, 2013). The support extended by the community services ensures in managing the self-care by the Youth, improve their relationships in the family and social circle, as well as accomplish a broader and better quality of life with improved social connectedness, housing facilities, education, and employment support. The Community service sector also signifies being an industry which renders the services of health care and social assistance (Dwyer, 2020). The industry is also divided into four service groups in which the direct care and client support address several sub-sector issues like disability, aged care and home care, allied health assistance, mental health, alcohol and other drug abuse, and health support services. 

The community services support, which provides assistance to the Youth and their mental illness, also faces management challenges. The total aid is based on establishing a robust human network and relationship since human resources engaged as the social workers can only address the mental health support to their clients. Hence, the identified challenges in the management of community service sector are managing the massive workforce or human resources and leadership challenges primarily focusing on the women in leadership in the community service sectors (McKinsey Report, 2020). The human resource management is itself a challenge in several organizations where managers find it challenging to manage the staff recruited as volunteers or permanent staff to provide mental health assistance to the young clients. The complicatedness arises when the staff selected for providing services are not trained enough to understand the complexity of the individual cases and address their issues. 

The main challenge is to comprehend the problems faced by the Youth with their mental illness while the staff may have required degree but may lack compassion or empathy to provide the necessary support. Hence, the conflict arises of unsatisfied clients managing the staff at the same time. The volunteers who provide free service at a time to learn the intricacies of the job may not find it to be worthy of continuing when they are not paid even after gaining experiences while attending clients. In this scenario, the management and retaining of talented human resources become complicated as well as critical since they are devoid of their payment for rendering services to the organization.

The second challenge to be precise is the inclusive attitude of the organizations in hiring women candidates to lead the organizations while providing community support services. The evidence of research on women leading the organization is considered to be critical since the sector is male-dominated, where women are shown biased attitude invisible to the policies of anti-discrimination (ACWA, 2020). The level of participation of women has increased manifold, however, providing them with substantial positions in the organization is still a farfetched dream in the context of community services. The global gender index report of 2018 stated that in Australia, the gender gap had been observed where senior officials, legislators, and managers showed reversed progress in terms of equal wage and position in the organizations. The identified gap was more evident due to discrimination and structural barriers (MHCSS, 2020). However, it also evident that assistance provided by the women to the depressed Youth was more responsive than their counterparts since the emotional quotient is considered to be generically high among the women.

Discussion on the different styles of leadership with suitability to address the management challenges

Transformational leadership style and Participative leadership style among several other leadership styles can be considered to suit the needs of addressing the management challenges. Transformational leadership, in particular addresses the followers with vision, encouragement, inspiration, and motivation to find innovative ways in enhancing their capabilities and bring positive change to the organization (Cosgrave et al. 2018). The challenge of managing the human resources can be mitigated by the leaders who are more open to new thoughts and ideas, open to experimenting new ways to treat their clients and as well as induce commitment from the employees to provide enhanced productivity to the organization. The idealized influence over the employees or the volunteers would help the managers or leaders in identifying their issues with the job position and profile. The other dimensions which can be considered in the transformational leadership contribute as inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation. The volunteers or staff engaged in the community service sector needs constant motivation, appraisal, and intellectual stimulation to support the young people from self-infliction or suicides. Hence, the leaders may adhere to the conditions of the social workers who are deeply engrossed in their cases and guide them to achieve their objectives in the services (Mendes, 2019). A true leader who has farsighted vision also incorporates anti-discriminatory policies to include all gender, race, culture, and people from a diverse background. The leaders must be able to identify the true potential of their followers.  

The participative style in the community support services brings the workplace in an integrated system to perform. Participative and Democratic leadership style encourages the collaboration of several entities and facilitates a free flow of idea in the organization. The leadership style also emphasize on reducing unnecessary competition among the employees. Hence, the morale of the employees is uplifted, which helps in employee retention in the organization (Lovell, 2016). The idea of the participative style of leadership helps in addressing the management challenges developed with a biased attitude towards the women and overall management of the workforce. The leaders are incorporating this style focus on collaboration with the management and the employees to bring the best possible outcome to support the young people suffering from mental health issues. The free-flowing ideas will not act as a hindrance to accepting the women as their leaders in the organizations which renders community services.  

Analysis of the partnerships operating in the sector in addressing the management challenges

The partnership services offered in the community services can be identified as the support services and behavioural health services. The management issues can be mitigated by these aspects since counselling, education and training, personal care, employment and community services and allied services are supported by these partnerships. Behavioural health services attribute to the support extended in psychiatric conditions which is essential to be addressed in this particular mental illness of the Youth covered by the personal and social services (Hoch et al. 2018). The volunteers and the employees require to be trained with behavioural health prevention to understand the primary conditions of the clients and their mental state of well being.  

The support services enable the volunteers or social workers to get trained and coached by the leaders on addressing the mental health issues of the clients. The specific population needs specific training to be intervened with professional etiquettes and expertise. The partnership offered by the behavioural health services covers diverse health services. The body is connected with both the physical and mental state of being and complements each other to be recovered. In this process, the behavioural health services address specific training to the social workers to distinguish between the specific cases with the clients (Sahu et al. 2018). For an example, a professional will be able to distinguish that what interventions will be required for a young client who has suicidal tendencies with substance abuse and another client may require different intervention to manage his bipolar identity or serious depression (Choi et al. 2016). The support services, on the other hand, will encourage the maximum participation of women in this sector with proper counselling, educational facilities to achieve the required degree in community service and employment opportunities with promotional policies. 

Discussion on the significance of innovation in the context of the community service sectors

Innovation in the community support services is recognized to be essential since technological advancement through devices and aids can improve the wellbeing of the clients who face mental illness. Youth who are mentally depressed can be provided with several healing and engaging Smartphone applications that act as healers for the Youth to help them cope with the depression of mental anxiety. The internet and digital space provide relevant to the Youth to socialize and create a purposeful network of people who actively addresses the mental health issues and prevent suicidal tendencies among the Youth (Chang et al. 2019). Tele-health options are also considered to be significant innovation where the mental health issues of mild nature can be addressed by the practitioners engaging social workers to constantly monitor their clients.  

The community services engage the social workers to provide support to the Youth who suffers from mental health issues where innovation may play a role. Smart energy and home control devices can be installed and connected with the support service organization or in particular to the social worker attending the client (Grill et al. 2017). The mobile, tablets or Smartphone help in scheduling the time for the client while recording and monitoring their service and instant feedback of their service to the organization. The prompt feedback from the client helps in addressing the service gaps, which reduces the unsatisfactory clients in the data base of the organization. Information sharing by maintaining the service protocols is also attributed by the innovation of process like video-conferencing and sending mails to the clients. Even payment options have become easier with a digital transaction (Goggin et al. 2019). The booking of certain health package through online services is possible due to innovation in technology. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the support services need to be lauded which address the mental health issues or illness of the Youth. It is evident that nay management organization will encounter challenges, but when they are systematically addressed with proper leadership styles and relevant solution, the expectation of outcome heightens up. Technology and innovation in a similar context are said to attribute to mitigate the management challenges. Promoting awareness of mental health issues with innovative techniques also reduces the level of mental health issues where young people tend to have suicidal thoughts.