Mental Health Agency Interview Assignment 

Identify a mental health agency (a Community Mental Health Center or a local provider) or agency providing advocacy services for mental health (e.g., NAMI, Mental Health Association, etc.) in your area.  Have a conversation with someone in that agency exploring what he or she perceives to be the three most critical issues in mental health today.  Write a 2-3 page, double- spaced paper that includes whom you spoke with and their position, the name of the agency, and a summary of your conversation, focusing on the critical issues identified by that person. 

Law-related Public Policy Research Paper  

You will be required to research and write a short paper (4 to 5 pages, double spaced) on some more specific aspect of the legal ramifications of mental health in the community.  Subject matter may be related to treatment of persons with mental illness in the criminal justice system, civil rights of persons with mental illness, consent to treatment, access to mental health care, prescription privileges for psychologists, institutionalization,   involuntary commitment laws, the not guilty by reason of insanity defense, etc.  You can use a combination of peer-reviewed articles, legal cases, and source documents, with 6-8 citations for A level work.  Make certain you cite your resources.  We urged you to refer to historic legal cases related to mental health care.  APA format must be used and points will be deducted for inappropriate citation style.  For students without an APA style manual, most APA style requirements are online (see for example,http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ orhttps://www.library.cornell.edu/research/citation/apa).  Points will also be deducted for grammatical and spelling errors (see rubric below for details).