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Financial stress has been found to contribute to mental health deterioration associated with job loss. This study examined whether specific types of income support programs (e.g., unemployment benefits and welfare) reduce the negative impacts of job loss on middle-aged women’s mental health in the United States. Two samples of women previously employed before their mental health assessments in their 40s and 50s were selected from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). We conducted regression analysis to predict their mental health scores using employment and income support program status. The model also controlled for baseline health before job loss, socioeconomic status, and demographic and family life characteristics. Compared to their continuously employed counterparts, 50 +  women who had job loss without unemployment benefits had significantly worse mental health. However, those receiving unemployment benefits did not have significantly worse mental health. Unemployment benefits’ ameliorating effect was not found in the 40 +  sample; and welfare programs did not have similar mental health effects. Our findings suggest that certain types of income support policies are beneficial to the mental health of certain cohorts of middle-aged women. For different groups of women, additional and alternative measures are needed to reduce the mental health damage of job loss.

Mental health is an underdeveloped service to the population generally and to African-Caribbean in particular. There is a need for more sensitive diagnosing, treatment and care. African-Caribbean people are asking for a more culturally competent mental healthcare system.

This chapter aims to address the following issues: how African-Caribbean people reflect on mental health and mental ill health. Their reflections are drawn from interviews done with African-Caribbean people who are involved with Hagar, a mental health charity in Lewisham, London. Mental health and mental illnesses will be examined, followed by the Psychiatrists’ use of the diagnostic tools that do a disservice to Black people. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its contribution to the mental ill health of Black people will be addressed, thus providing a historical underpinning for much of Black people’s struggle with mental ill health. Racism and its contribution to mental health issues will be presented. The views of the Black Psychiatrist Franz Fanon will be argued as a way of understanding oppression, alienation and mental ill health in Black people, and going on to open up ways of providing treatment and care. Finally suggestions will be made about how to provide a culturally competent mental health service to African Heritage peoples.

Reexamination and reinterpretation of the process of deinstitutionalization of public mental hospital inpatients.

A comprehensive review of related research is presented and lessons learned for the sociology of mental health are identified.

The processes of both institutionalization and deinstitutionalization were motivated by belief in the influence of the social environment on the course of mental illness, but while in the early 19th century the social environment of the mental hospital was seen as therapeutic, later in the 20th century the now primarily custodial social environment of large state mental hospitals was seen as iatrogenic. Nonetheless, research in both periods indicated the benefit of socially supportive environments in the hospital, while research on programs for deinstitutionalized patients and for homeless persons indicated the value of comparable features in community programs.

While the process of deinstitutionalization is largely concluded, research should focus on identifying features of the social environment that can maximize rehabilitation.

The debate over the merits of hospital-based and community-based mental health services is misplaced; policies should instead focus on the alternatives for providing socially supportive environments. Deinstitutionalization in the absence of socially supportive programs has been associated with increased rates of homelessness and incarceration among those most chronically ill.

A comprehensive analysis of deinstitutionalization that highlights flaws in prior sociological perspectives and charts a new direction for scholarship.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England survey (National Health Service Digital, 2020) found that 1 in 6 children aged 5–16 have a probable mental health disorder. This represents 16% of children in that age group and is an increase from 1 in 9 in 2017 (Public Health England, 2021). Evidence suggests that some children and young people, particularly those who are economically disadvantaged, females and those with pre-existing mental health needs appear to have experienced greater negative impacts on their mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic (Public Health England, 2021) and schools and colleges therefore play an important role in continuing to support children and young people’s mental health. Evidence from the national charity, Education Support (2022), also indicates that the mental health of staff working in education has deteriorated, leading to adverse effects on job satisfaction, burnout and retention. This chapter explores the latest evidence relating to Children and Young People’s (CYP) mental health and the whole school approach to mental health, including the mental health of staff who work in the education sector. It makes a case for implementing a mental health curriculum in schools. It addresses the concept of mental health literacy and approaches for working in partnership with children and young people. It makes an argument for universal screening and outlines approaches for working in partnership with parents, carers and other agencies. Theoretical perspectives are considered and applied to school contexts.

This chapter discusses the experiences of black men who encounter the phenomena of a mental health diagnosis, detention and death in a forensic setting in England. Although there are black women with mental health issues who have also died in forensic settings, the occurrence is significantly higher for men who become demonised as ‘Big, Black, Bad and dangerous’. The author discusses the historical over representation of mental ill health amongst black people in the general community and the plethora or reasons attributed to this. The author then discusses the various points of entry into the criminal justice system, where black men with mental health issues are over represented. The author explores some inquiries into the deaths of black men in custody and the recommendations that were subsequently made, which successive governments have failed to act upon. The author argues that the term ‘Institutional Racism’ is insufficient to explain this phenomenon; and offers her own theoretical interpretation which is a combination of systemic racism influenced by post-colonial conceptualisation

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.

This chapter describes and analyzes a project offering university-based courses to local people with mental health problems. Converge is a partnership between York St John University and the National Health Service (NHS) that is built on a convergence of interests of the two organizations: real world experience for university students and good quality, non-stigmatizing courses for people with mental health problems. Three key principles of the project will be considered: to work with participants as students and to frame the provision as education, not therapy; to involve university students in the delivery of the courses and in the support of participants; and to work closely with the university and mental health providers in order to offer a resource that supports social integration and recovery.

It will be proposed that this partnership provides the conditions for the creation of a “healing campus”: an attempt to heal the “fracture” between people who experience mental health problems and their communities that began with their disappearance into large mental hospitals in the 18th and 19th centuries. The healing that this chapter examines is not merely of people who identify as having mental health problems but of a social and cultural fracture revealed in the stigma and shame that still surrounds mental ill health.

This chapter presents an evaluation of the literature on the effect of the pandemic on mental health. It draws mainly on the existing economics literature and presents the state of the art of the COVID-19 effect on mental health. While paying particular attention to how the deterioration of mental health evolved over time and across countries, this chapter also considers variation of mental health across individual demographic characteristics as well as different circumstances through which mental health has been affected. Moreover, it provides a general assessment of the methodological aspects of various studies, by discussing the sample and data used, measures of mental health as well as causality issues. Overall, researchers for various countries around the world adopting different measures of mental health, often non-comparable samples and different methodologies document consistently that the level of mental health has been deteriorated during the pandemic, with the negative effect of the lockdown on mental health being evident in the early stage of the pandemic and on the whole population. Findings point out to a high degree of heterogeneity within demographic groups.

This chapter will argue that the representation of mental illness in The Archers is unrepresentative in a number of ways. Sufferers of long-term mental health problems are not portrayed in the programme and mental illness is often used as a narrative device, leading to a bias towards circumstantial, single-episode mental ill health storylines. This chapter will also cover the portrayal of Helen Archer’s mental health during and after suffering emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, arguing that it suffers from a number of shortcomings.

In this chapter, the authors argue that technology can be advantageous to children and young people’s mental health. The authors argue that social media platforms can foster social connection, social support and access to important information to support mental health. The authors also highlight the risks, particularly the research which links technology to mental ill-health. The authors argue that the digital curriculum in schools should develop young people’s knowledge of digital literacy, digital citizenship and digital resilience. Finally, the authors explore the potential role that technological applications (apps) can play in supporting children and young people’s mental health. The authors argue that although research is in its infancy, some studies have produced promising results.