[DRAFT #2] Mental Health Standards

[Vicitania]

Category: Health
Strength: Mild
Are to be Affected: Healthcare

The World Assembly,

Recognizing that many people across the world lack adequate mental healthcare,

Protecting the innate, inalienable right to life, comfortability, and general health, and

Striving to meet the increasing need for licensed mental health professionals,

Requires all member nations to push programs that meet the needs of underprivileged people such as minority groups, foreign-born people with a second language other than that of their home country, the homeless and unemployed, veterans, prisoners, and any other historically disenfranchised group of people,

Charges the World Health Authority with the responsibility of setting standards, which will assure that underprivileged countries get the mental healthcare that they may be lacking, so that nobody is forced to suffer from treatable or preventable illness.

Category: Health
Area to be affected: Healthcare

The World Assembly,
herein referred to as the WA,

recognizing that many people across the world lack adequate mental healthcare,

protecting the innate, inalienable right to life, comfortability, and general health, whenever possible,

enacts the following policies, in their entirety, according to the specific definitions and intentions of the WA:

1. Definitions: The following should be used as definitions throughout this bill.
   
   
   1. Public institutions, herein PIs, shall be enumerated as follows: any places of work, education, or recreation that are funded by local, state, national, and/or international government(s).
      
   2. Commercial institutions, herein CIs, shall be enumerated as follows: any person or private organization legally employing one or more persons for the primary purpose of financial gain.
      
   3. Miscellaneous private institutions, herein MPIs, shall be enumerated as follows: organizations not funded by the government and not operating for profit.
      
   4. Mental health professionals, herein MHPs, shall be all people licensed through a government agency for the purpose of providing mental healthcare.
   
   
2. The Committee on Psychological Wellbeing: The WA hereby establishes a Committee on Psychological Wellbeing, herein referred to as the CPW. The duties of the CPW shall be as follows:
   
   
   1. Create and maintain a treasury for funds allocated for mental healthcare.
      
   2. Create and maintain an International Network of Professional Psychologists, which will consist of mental health professionals from around the world who's duty is to aid in the care of particularly underprivileged or impoverished persons.
      
   3. Aid the WHA in affairs pertaining to the mental health of the general population by:
      
      1. Tracking trends in the statistical analysis of the global mental health.
      2. Auditing CIs and PIs to ensure compliancy with this, and any other law or procedure passed by the WA or WHA.
3. Requirements: The WA requires that the following standards and procedures be met in all enumerated institutions:
   
   
   1. CIs are required to:
      
      
      1. ensure that all Human Resources representatives complete courses designed to gauge and enhance their abilities to competently deal with issues, traumas, and similar phenomena common in the workplace.
         
         
         1. Some CIs might not have Human Resources departments, in which case an employees direct superior is charged with making certain that employees have access to directories of affordable MHPs.
            
         2. Unionized workers may negotiate for the right to handle MHP networks themselves, but are not charged with such a duty by the WA.
      2. make certain that all employees have the access to MHP directories approved by the CPW. These can be private networks partnered with each company or the INPP, which will make public the ability to contact an MHP the moment of crisis.
         
      3. reimburse all employees for at least one hour-long meeting per month with an MHP, as determined by the CPW.
   2. PIs are required to maintain on payroll a ratio of 1 MHP to every 750 people enrolled/employed, with the average caseload per MHP not exceeding 40 patients.
      
      
   3. MPIs are required to provide references to MHPs in the INPP to anybody who may be of need.
      
      
   4. All PIs, CIs, and MPIs are required to submit to involuntary audits by the CPW to determine whether or not there is a substantial lack of MHPs available to the general population.

[Anne of Cleves in TNP]

“This seems fine so far. I have yet to detect any major errors, so for now, the Clevesian people will support this.”
-Ms. Charlotte Schafer, WA Ambassador for the Clevesian Empire

[Indiana Controlled Florida]

"You see, Indiana Controlled Florida has made a choice to put Mentally Illed into camps where they can live together away from society. We will NOT be agreeing to this resolution as this is trying to make us put more effort into this issue."

[Tinhampton]

You interchangably refer to "mental health professionals," "psychologists," and "therapists." Can you please pick one term and stick to it?

Not all CIs, especially not sole traders, have "Human Resources representatives" who can take the required courses. What will do you about those?

Are the monthly therapy hours described in Article 1 mandatory, or is the requirement merely for reimbursement rather than attendance? Or will this be "determined by the CPP" (your placement of that phrase at the end of that clause makes it confusing whether the therapy itself or the identity of the professional will be CPP-determined)?

In Articles 1 and 3, you talk about certain organisations being made to provide employees with "references" to mental health professionals. Do you mean that they should be given something like a directory of such profeessionals or that they should be forced into therapy meetings with them without their consent?

How can the CPW approve those "affordable licensed mental-health professionals" mentioned in Article 1? If you mean to say that those mental health professionals must be members of the INPP, could you please just say so and spare everyone the effort? What is an affordable mental health professional? And why do you require that they be licensed when not all member states license them (nor are they required to license them under this or any other resolution)?

You require all businesses to "submit semi-annual reports to the WHA on mental health trends among anonymous employee volunteers." Who is an anonymous employee volunteer? What trends are there to find in such reports if they are the first of their kind issued by those businesses? What will the WHA do with those reports? And why does the WHA need them?

In addition, you require CIs to "submit reports every year to the CPW on mental-health-related expenses." Why does the CPW need those reports? Why can businesses not just keep the expenses records themselves, like they do for literally every other category of expenses known to sapience?

Why do you have therapist quotas for PIs - keeping in mind that not all therapists focus on mental health? And how will you determine their "average caseload?"

What is an underprivileged person and why is it in the INPP's interest to help them?

All organisations must "to submit to involuntary audits by the CPW to determine whether or not the WHA should invest in INPP psychologists" under your proposal. Notwithstanding the fact that the INPP falls under the remit of the CPW (not the WHA), how do you expect the CPW to audit so many businesses over an unclear timeframe, what criteria will they use to make the determination about INPP psychologists, what will those psychologists do, and could those psychologists be sent out to organisations which are not primarily made up of "underprivileged or impoverished persons?"

A band who regularly tour local music venues without expecting compensation, a recreational sports team (such as a pub/Sunday league football team), a religious leadership circle (such as the College of Cardinals), a society of homeschooling parents, a group of flatmates, and - to wit - any group of two or more freely-associating people "not operating for profit" all count as MPIs. How do you expect every single member of every single MPI "to provide references to licensed mental-health professionals to anybody who may be of need," even if they have no direct connections to the needy? And, more to the point, how and why do you expect the CPW to audit every MPI - including the ones that may not be registered with governments or otherwise easily contacted?

You task the CPW with holding "funds allocated for mental healthcare." What are they supposed to do with those funds? How will they get those funds - keeping in mind that member states cannot be directly taxed? And why can member states not fund mental healthcare themselves?

Put bluntly, your proposal raises far more questions than it provides answers and I can't see myself supporting it.

[Vicitania]

Thank you so much for all the helpful critiques, Tinhampton, I have taken many of them into consideration, and anything that I missed I'm sure we can all work together to iron here. I think, overall, we have here have some pretty positive, effective legislation to combat mental illness. This bill would:

• create an International Network of Professional Psychologists, who would then be able to aid in mental health crisis across the globe.
• require companies and public employers to provide their workers with access to said network

Ultimately, with this, I hope to eliminate the disparity in the care that is given to people of a certain privilege versus those of lower status in the same society.

[Tinhampton]

So what you really want is for everyone, "underprivileged or impoverished" or not, to have access to a MHP. Why do you believe that allowing people to choose from the INPP pool (if they're lucky enough to...), rather than imposing duties upon member states or just guaranteeing a generic right to mental healthcare, is the best way of approaching this problem?

Article 4 is still not adequately explained, although i note you've added a new auditing requirement to the CPW section.
The CPW's mandate to hold funds ringfenced for mental healthcare is no better explained than it was, either.
And the reimbursement requirement in Article 1 remains vague.

[Vicitania]

So what you really want is for everyone, "underprivileged or impoverished" or not, to have access to a MHP. Why do you believe that allowing people to choose from the INPP pool (if they're lucky enough to...), rather than imposing duties upon member states or just guaranteeing a generic right to mental healthcare, is the best way of approaching this problem?

I suppose I would be open to other methods, it just seems to me that requiring member nations to do it themselves might not have as significant of an effect on the crisis itself. We can urge or "require" things of member nations, but ultimately, compliance is never 100% in effect. So, I thought a way around this was just to provide all people with a universal directory of MHPs, which will then boost the efficacy of mental health everywhere. I see what you mean, though, it's a subtle change and doesn't really effect procedure much, but when we're thinking globally, it seems like all we can really do provide people with options. However, I would love to see a mild-strength bill urging all member nations to support legislation that boosts mental healthcare. I just took this particular piece of legislation in a different direction.

[Tinhampton]

So what you really want is for everyone, "underprivileged or impoverished" or not, to have access to a MHP. Why do you believe that allowing people to choose from the INPP pool (if they're lucky enough to...), rather than imposing duties upon member states or just guaranteeing a generic right to mental healthcare, is the best way of approaching this problem?

I suppose I would be open to other methods, it just seems to me that requiring member nations to do it themselves might not have as significant of an effect on the crisis itself. We can urge or "require" things of member nations, but ultimately, compliance is never 100% in effect. So, I thought a way around this was just to provide all people with a universal directory of MHPs, which will then boost the efficacy of mental health everywhere. I see what you mean, though, it's a subtle change and doesn't really effect procedure much, but when we're thinking globally, it seems like all we can really do provide people with options. However, I would love to see a mild-strength bill urging all member nations to support legislation that boosts mental healthcare. I just took this particular piece of legislation in a different direction.

The Administrative Compliance Act already says that you must comply with all resolutions or get fined a lot of money. But if anything I'd say this is too overbearing/targeted just going out for something to eat but I'll be back with yet another signature Tinhampton Rewrite(tm) in a couple of hours

[Vicitania]

Okay, here is my second draft. It is much more mild in its mechanics, let me know if it feels a little too empty.

Big shout out and thank you to Tinhampton for all their help!

Thanks all!
-Vicitania

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

Requires all member nations to push programs that meet the needs of underprivileged people such as minority groups, foreign-born people with a second language other than that of their home country, the homeless and unemployed, veterans, prisoners, and any other historically disenfranchised group of people,

I'm having a hard time understanding how pushing programs to meet the needs of minority groups, foreign-born people with a second language, homeless people, unemployed people, veterans, and prisoners is a "mental health standard." Are you suggesting being foreign born and speaking a second language is a mental health condition? Being unemployed is a mental health condition? Being a veteran... well, hopefully you get my point by now. What exactly are you trying to do with this clause?

Charges the World Health Authority with the responsibility of setting standards, which will assure that underprivileged countries get the mental healthcare that they may be lacking, so that nobody is forced to suffer from treatable or preventable illness.

If I were cynical I'd say this is how most RL legislatures tend to deal with complicated issues. Create a bureaucracy, punt the complicated issue to them to figure out, maybe some oversight.

Proposals like this don't usually attract too much support in the WA. Voters like to see authors at least attempt to identify concrete ways their proposal would address an issue. I'd expect that to be particularly true for a complicated issue like mental health standards. What you've written here boils down to: "Don't worry everyone, we'll make the gnomes do it and they'll figure this out for us."

If this is really the direction you want to go, may I suggest: "Establishes the World Assembly Miracle Committee, and tasks it will identifying and then solving all of the world's problems."

Otherwise, perhaps do some research on mental health standards, find some you think might be universally beneficial, and maybe even run them by some other players you know/like to see who might support. Then post it here for help with resolution drafting/unsolicited rants/unhelpful complaining.

I like where you're heart is as far as what you'd like to address, but you've got a long way to go from here.

[Vicitania]

I'm having a hard time understanding how pushing programs to meet the needs of minority groups, foreign-born people with a second language, homeless people, unemployed people, veterans, and prisoners is a "mental health standard." Are you suggesting being foreign born and speaking a second language is a mental health condition? Being unemployed is a mental health condition? Being a veteran... well, hopefully you get my point by now. What exactly are you trying to do with this clause?

I'm not saying that those are mental health conditions, I'm saying that because minority groups as such are underrepresented in every area of society, there is a disparity to be met.

However, I do see what you're saying about pawning the issue off on a separate branch. I'll see if I can come up with some more concrete ways to fix the issue. My initial goal for this bill was to establish a Network of Internationally recognized mental health professionals which could be utilized in countries where a lack of available treatment might be prevalent. Perhaps I should revisit the 1st Draft?

[Fachumonn]

Against, there needs to be a lot more here.

[Anne of Cleves in TNP]

Against, there needs to be a lot more here.

OOC: Agreed, the first draft had more content.