Assignment 3: Mental Illness in Prison

As a forensic mental health professional, you will be often asked to provide basic education to correctional experts in prisons about the true nature of mental illness in general and the specific ways that mental illness is manifested in offender populations. The correctional staff is subject to common biases and misinformation related to what mental disorders look like in real life and often consider mental illness in offenders to be a yes/no (they either have it or they don’t) proposition. It is important to educate such staff about the shades of gray inherent in mental disorders, along with realistic portrayals of specific mental disorders.

Tasks:

As the forensic mental health professional in a prison, you have been asked to conduct training with various supervisors on the types of mental illnesses offenders might display in prison.

Develop a 12- to 15-slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation with detailed speaker notes to generate a training program for the various supervisors in a prison. Your training program must include the following:

• Describe the major clinical mental disorders that can impact offenders, including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Explain each disorder and the prominent symptoms.
• Explain personality disorders.
• Identify common personality disorders of offenders in correctional settings. Explain how forensic mental health professionals assess for personality disorders.
• Define malingering.
• Describe the types of secondary gain that offenders are likely to pursue through malingering. Explain how malingering can be detected by forensic mental health professionals.

Submission Details:

• By the due date assigned, save your presentation as M1_A3_Lastname_Firstname.ppt and submit it to the Submissions Area.

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