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The nature of policework is uniquely challenging to officers’ mental health, producing detrimental outcomes such as higher rates of suicide, substance abuse and divorce compared to other occupations. This is especially true in small and rural police departments, where officers often have broader responsibilities and cover a larger geographic area than their counterparts who work in large urban departments. Given the limited resources available to small and rural police, the purpose of this study is to explore the mental health services available to officers in small and rural police departments.

We used a mixed methods approach. First, we surveyed 349 small and rural Pennsylvania police chiefs about the mental health services in their department. Of these chiefs, 53 participated in subsequent in-depth qualitative interviews about officer awareness of the mental health services available to them, what resources they thought would be helpful to officers and what barriers exist to prevent officers from seeking help.

Quantitative results indicated that 22% of small and rural police departments had no mental health programs available to officers; Critical Incident Stress Management and Employee Assistance Programs were most commonly available. Budget size and the presence of a union influenced whether a department had mental health programs available to officers. Qualitative interviews found that although most departments provided some mental health services, officers were unlikely to use them. Chiefs expressed a need for improved services that officers might be more likely to use.

Given the lack of resources available in small and rural police departments and the lack of adoption of some resources, we recommend peer assistance, general wellness programs and telehealth as feasible options for officer mental health.

Small and rural police comprise the bulk of policing in the USA, yet remain understudied. This study focuses on small and rural police.

The second chapter of this text provides an introduction to policy relating to mental health, addiction and dual diagnosis from three jurisdictions [Ireland, UK and Australia], chosen because of their close links to Irish people and mental health service provision. The chapter begins with an introduction, reflecting on key points raised in Chapter 1 and how they are relevant to this present chapter. A critical exploration of the policies within these three jurisdictional areas is then presented to highlight the strategic direction of mental health and addiction service provision within the three jurisdictions. This includes the acknowledgement that mental health and addiction services need to be integrated as the presence of dual diagnosis in modern society increases at an alarming rate. Finally, this chapter concludes with a link to each of the policies mentioned herein for those who wish to explore these issues further.

The purpose of this paper is to examine community based, trauma informed to support refugee mental health and wellbeing, recognising that refugee status is met through forced displacement in which refugees have experience of personal human rights abuses and have survived atrocities in which family and community have been lost.

A co-production approach was taken to review existing literature and policy to produce a position statement on how to better meet the needs of people who experience mental distress who are refugees. The co-production was between refugee and mental health researchers and refugee representatives.

Understanding the mental health needs of refugees has conventionally focused on incidence of mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. If mental health and illness are understood as a continuum, diagnosis of mental illness indicates a significant problem, and furthermore access to services is predicated on risks associated with mental illness. When accessing mental health services, refugees have an added issue in a lack of communication availability and recognition of the trauma that they have survived.

In this paper, a different position is advocated, that understanding the mental health of refugees can be framed more effectively as a process of recovery from trauma that emerges during resettlement, and over a long period of time before people are able to talk about the trauma they experienced. Community-based responses that enable recovery from trauma are more readily able to meet the mental health and wellbeing needs of refugee communities.

This study aims to describe the perceptions of some participants from a community mental health center in the Department of Chocó, Colombia.

A case study with a qualitative approach was carried out in 2023. Focus groups were conducted with mental health leaders and members of a community mental health center. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis.

Two categories emerged: characterize the Community Mental Health Center of Chocó and Reaffirm human rights. In the first category, the community center is described as a place of recovery that mobilizes social services and works to increase agency capacity. In the second category, the human rights were assumed as part of community services, not only to eliminate coercive practices but also to support the increase of autonomy.

The limitations of this study are the analysis of strategies from the perspective of global politics, without delving into the structure of community actions themselves, which are not necessarily based on global recommendations.

Despite the design and development of public policies the study of their implementation still poses several challenges. The strategies carried out by regions that follow evidence-based practices and participation routes are not officially recognized as good practices in mental health and, therefore, independently supported to be sustained.

A community mental health center is described that manages to be implement and deliver a service despite not being able to be financed by current national regulations. This indicates, apart from a need, the capacity of the regions to build their solutions beyond regulations.

This, the first chapter of this text provides an introduction to a social world that is constructed through cultural attitudes, with a long history of the so-called ‘insane’ or deviants being excluded from society. In many cases, this was due to their behaviour resulting from an addiction issue, mental ill health or as is often the case, both. The chapter begins with an introduction to what led to the conceptualisation of this text. Once this occurs, the interplay between the ‘normal’ and the deviant, as discussed above, is played through an examination of the cultural perceptions of both mental health and addiction. In addition, to support this, a brief historical timeline of mental health, addiction and dual diagnosis is described and visually depicted. Finally, the chapter concludes with an introduction to both editors of this text who then describe what will be discussed in the chapters that follow.

User involvement and co-production are imperative to the design, delivery and evaluation of service provision. This chapter provides a brief introduction to these concepts as they relate to mental health, addiction and dual diagnosis. This occurs through an exploration of models of user involvement, particularly, Arnstein’s ladder of participation and MHERs engagement continuum. This is followed by exploring the benefits of user involvement at both a micro and macro level. Co-production – as the highest form of participation is also introduced followed by how these concepts are noted within policy. These concepts are imperative to the creation of a recovery-orientated service that meets the needs of the whole person and their supporters.

The purpose of this paper was to establish how the phenomenon of mental health issues among young people has translated into the reality of Irish schools through the lens of Irish teachers.

This wholly qualitative study adopted a post-positivist and phenomenological approach to gathering data by way of semi-structured interviews of 16 participants, 8 from primary backgrounds and 8 from post-primary backgrounds. Analysis of the data highlighted what teachers perceive to be ongoing issues with the mental health and well-being of pupils and the challenges that both teachers and pupils must overcome.

Interviewing the participants unearthed three sub-themes with regard to mental health in Irish schools, namely, the prevalence of psychiatric disorders/symptoms of mental ill-health among Irish children and adolescents, the barriers preventing help-seeking and the role of mental health support services in Irish schools.

One limitation in this study was that a wider variety in sample could have yielded a more in-depth volume of results. Furthermore, the study by semi-structured interview presented challenges, such as the use of other people’s viewpoints to support the perceptions of the participants, which could not be validated.

Among the recommendations made by the participants were that schools engage in policy development to combat mental health and well-being issues, that teachers engage in continuous professional development in the area and that mental health support services are sufficiently staffed and funded.

The general public should engage more in activities that promote a healthy dialogue around the topic of mental health to reduce stigma. It is recommended that campaigns to raise awareness are continued and bolstered.

Irish teachers are being confronted by a contemporary discourse that has materialised as a by-product of an evolving society. Cultural development has led to increased focus on mental health and well-being in recent years, with this body of research exploring its emergence into school life from teachers’ perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to outline what early support should be offered to children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions including those who are autistic or have intellectual disability. A review of all child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) services in the Northwest completed by NHS England and Improvement (Doyle and Ryan, 2021) found that there was no clear Tier 2 offer (for mild to moderate mental health issues) for autistic children and young people or for those with intellectual disability. Following this review, a project group that had developed a model for mental health services for autistic children and young people and for those with intellectual disability (Wee et al., 2021) was tasked with articulating the “Getting Help” offer for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions, including intellectual disability.

A working group was created consisting of professionals from mental health, education and local authority and lived experience representatives of coproduction partners. A brief review of the background literature was also conducted. Six meetings were held to create a framework for the “Getting Help” offer and to discuss what the offer should be based on professional expertise and lived experience.

Recommendations for the Getting Help multi-agency offer included pre- and post-assessment support as part of a single attention deficit hyperactivity disorder/autism/neurodevelopmental pathway, community support for children with intellectual disability, access to adapted mental health support and the need for early recognition and support for avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder. Key themes from working group discussions included the reduction in the quality of services experienced by children and families due to silo working, which increased the risk of falling between multi-agency services and led to early signs of neurodevelopmental needs, or mental health issues being missed. Another theme was aiming for equity of access and outcomes.

This work is a response to a coproduced review of CAMHS in the Northwest and incorporates the lived experience of young people and families. It also adopts a holistic multi-agency neurodevelopmental approach rather than focusing on a single diagnosis or service.

Impoverished employee mental health is harmful to employees and organisational performance. There is emerging interest in employee mental health in the human resource management (HRM) field. The majority of these studies mainly focus on the organisational and individual levels from the psychological and managerial perspectives without considering the sectoral characteristics and societal context.

This perspective paper draws on extant literature as well as 10 informal interviews with medical professionals, organisational leaders in the public sector, teachers and HR professionals to shed light on employee mental health research, practice and challenges in the Chinese context.

This paper reveals national, sectoral, occupational and individual factors that shape mental health problems, individual coping mechanisms and organisational interventions. It also shows international influence on employee mental health in the form of institutional pressure and knowledge transfer.

There is limited research on employee mental health and HRM in the Chinese context, which restricts the scope of discussion in this paper, but at the same time presents rich future research opportunities that may be relevant to other national settings.

Managing the mental health of the workforce is part of the mental health management of the population, which means a holistic approach to building a mental health eco-system needs to be adopted. The authors call for more research on employee mental health in the Chinese context to provide evidence to support policy development and organisational efforts to scale up mental health services at the national and organisational levels. The authors also provide practical recommendations for policymakers and employing organisations.

The authors present a multi-level and multi-factor overview related to employee mental health in the Chinese context. The authors argue for a resource-based and multi-stakeholder approach, which will help inform and improve mental health policy and practice. The authors present several avenues for future scholarship and research. The authors extend the research frontiers of employee mental health issues by calling for the inclusion of a broader range of theoretical lenses including institutional theory, cultural and spiritual perspective and critical sociology to understand more fully how employee mental health conditions may be undermined or improved.

New psychoactive substance (NPS) use in mental health and addiction health-care services is a common co-morbidity. This paper aims to explore the survey responses with health-care professional’s (HCPs) engagements and experiences towards people who use NPS in five health-care services.

A theoretically adapted online survey design explored the engagements and experiences of participants towards people who use NPS across (n = 3) community and (n = 2) rehabilitation mental health and addiction health-care services consisting of (n = 1,027) service users.

A total of 92 participants (of 120 participants) completed the survey and 28 did not. Most (56.33%) reported neutral to poor experiences and engagements and a lack of NPS-related policies, procedures and educational training. Participants (99%) recognised the harmful effects of NPSs and (87%) requested clinical assessment procedures. The participants are unable to identify and manage acute intoxication by NPS, lack knowledge of NPS adverse effects and requested NPS-specific training on drug legislation.

The sample may not be representative with the broader UK population. The study’s methods are comparable to similar research surrounding NPS in health-care services. Similar studies may advance the findings.

The implications for practice include NPS awareness trainings, educational updates through seminars and conferences. Participants requested clearer NPS assessment, referral and management processes. Several policy-making and procedural opportunities exist to ensure a better health outcome for people who use NPS.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first theoretically adapted survey to explore participant’s engagements and experiences with people who use NPS in addiction and mental health settings.