Mental Health

Consulting Firm
A Proposal for Mental Health
Workshops

Submitted to Fargo-Moorhead Community

Association
11/18/2016

Founded in 2013, Mental Health Consulting Firm (MHCF) is an example of a

community-based non-profit organization that aims at reducing mental health through
increased awareness by workshops as well as making local resources known. Based in
Grand Forks, it was deemed as the local community's reference point about mental
health issues in the past three years by showing complete knowledge of the problem.
The flexibility with how we go about holding workshops and our continuous
improvement methodology has led to its expansion. MHCF is currently the leading nonprofit mental health firm in Grand Forks with over 10,000 followers on social media.
With growth and expansion, however, comes with daily obstacles, and MHCF now
faces the challenge to make important decisions on how it will overcome them to
remain a highly competitive firm in the near future. The right decisions at the right
times can lead to increased referrals, consultations, and even establish more
prominence in the community. However, MHCF needs to create a more positive outlook
as its success relies on the quality of service and flexibility to continuous
improvement.
This proposal defines a creative strategy that will improve mental health among young
professionals in the Fargo/ Moorhead area. Specifically, MHCF proposes to the Fargo/
Moorhead Community Association to implement holding workshops for young
professionals about mental illness. Workshops will help educate young professionals
about the most prevalent mental illnesses in the area as well as develop long-term
solutions to reducing stigmatizations and provide resources to get the help they need.
In our proposal, we will first discuss the current situation of mental health in the area.
Then we will provide our methods in which we believe will solve the problem. Next, we
will present our employees qualifications to succeed in bringing the firm to the Fargo/
Moorhead area. Finally, the budget and benefits of our proposal.

Current Situation
The problem that we have been researching for quite some time now is how to raise
awareness of mental illnesses in young professionals, ages 18-25, who are living in the
Fargo/Moorhead area. We also need to raise awareness in the resources that are
readily available in the area for young professionals to utilize and get the help they
need to be healthy and to become productive members of todays society.
The causes for the problem in the awareness of mental illnesses in young
professionals is the fact that many people in that age group, 18-25 years old, arent
willing to open themselves up to other people. The people who suffer from a mental
illness dont want to admit it to themselves and dont see the need to seek help. In the
research that we have conducted by surveying people in the area we found that, on
average, there is a 9.25 out of 10 for how much mental health affects young
professionals. This means mental health is extremely affecting young adults. Other
factors also come into play with what causes this problem. First, there is the fact that
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this age group has to deal with the stress of so much change in a short period of time.
Things like going away to college and perhaps having to work at the same time can
cause extreme stress which leads to such illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Then factor in that after college they must deal with finding a career that will help
them pay off student loans and with a bachelors degree not being as significant as
they once used to be it is tougher to get in these jobs. Another factor is the weather in
North Dakota. In the winter people get Seasonal Depressive Disorder due to lack of
sunlight creating vitamin D in their bodies, shorter days, and being stuck inside all day.
Not only is there a problem with the awareness of mental illnesses in young
professionals, but there is also the lack of utilization and knowledge of resources
available. From the research we have conducted by doing surveys in the area, it was
found that 43.8% of the population that were surveyed, did not know or have not
heard about any of the resources that were listed. This leads us to the conclusion that
when people hear about these resources they dont fully understand what they are
and what they have to offer for people with a mental illness. Another problem is that
these resources dont get much promotion or publicity in the community. This can be
difficult in raising awareness for these resources when the community has barley any
idea what they are and what exactly they do for the community.
The effects if nothing is done about the problem is that people who suffer from a
mental illness might feel like that there isnt any place to turn when it comes to
getting help. They will continue to feel alone and isolated. This will make them less
likely to speak up and talk about their illness. They might not fully understand what
mental illness they have and how to properly cope. Thus, they will not be able to
overcome their illness and go on to becoming more productive members of society.
Some other effects that can happen if nothing is done is resources in the area for
mental health wont get an influx of business and if business doesnt increase for them
then they will remain relatively unknown to the community. The percentage of people
with mental illness could grow even higher as people wont go to these resources to
get help. According to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2014, 20.1% of people
ages 18-25 had a mental illness. That is an 9% increase from a study that was
conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration back in
2009, which found that 11.1% of people ages 18-25 had a mental illness. These
numbers give us an outlook as to how much mental illness is increasing. If people
arent utilizing the resources that are available or dont know of them, then these
numbers will increase overtime. Also, with the continued increase of people who may
not be getting treated properly or at all could cause there to be an increase in
potential suicide. As recorded in our survey 62.5% of the people who took our survey
knew someone who had committed or attempted suicide. All of these numbers are
shocking and need to be addressed

Methods
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What we want to do in order to solve this problem is provide awareness of the

resources available in the Fargo/ Moorhead area for mental illness and educate clients
on the signs of the most prevalent mental illness. This will be done by bringing our
company to your area to conduct workshops for young professionals. The following
are steps to achieve this goal.
Advertising
The purpose of advertising is to get the word out about the Mental Illness
Consulting Firm moving to the Fargo/ Moorhead area. The following is how this
will be done:
o First, we will contact the local colleges Counseling Services, as well as
their Career Center. The following are some of the main colleges we will
contact as they have the largest amount of students in the area: NDSU,
MSUM, Concordia. Our reasoning for contacting the Counseling Centers is
to create a partnership with them. The reason for contacting the Career
Center is to find out what companies in town have hired the highest
number of recent graduates. This will be done by forming a mass email
that we can send out to all of the campuses.
o Once we figure out which companies in the area have the highest number
of recent college graduates we will begin advertising to their companies.
The way we will advertise to companies is by pamphlets. On these
pamphlets there will be information regarding what our business does,
statistics on mental illness in young professionals, our website address,
and how to contact the Mental Illness Consulting Firm.
o To reach more of the public we will hang posters up around the Fargo/
Moorhead area that will have all of our information on it as well as our
website for them to check out the company.
o Our website will have a tab specifically for the Fargo/ Moorhead location.
This website is already set up for our Grand Forks location, so it will be
minimal work to add another tab.
o Our graphic designer is going to create all of the posters, brochures,
pamphlets, and the website.
o Finally, the firm will create a press release to inform the community of the
new firm in the area.
Creating the workshop
Below we have created a rough outline for what the Mental Illness Consulting
Firm has in mind for the workshops. It is based off of what we do in Grand Forks
already, but we changed a few things around to accommodate what our surveys
showed us about the area.
o

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Our main focus will be on depression and anxiety due to the survey
results showing that this is the most prevalent mental illness in the area.

This can change if the group we are giving the workshop requests a
certain mental illness to be the main focus.
There will be talk about the different resources that the Fargo/ Moorhead
area has available. This discussion will include what the resources the
area has to offer as well as how to contact them.
Another topic that the results showed was how to spot if a friend is
struggling with a mental illness. This will provide friends and family
members with the education to be able to help identify if someone they
love needs help.
Then we will wrap it up with the surveys last request being tips on how to
manage stress.

For during the workshop, different brochures will be made on the topics that we
cover. This will be beneficial in allowing the clients to be able to refer back to
what we talked about during the workshop. Not only will the clients have the
brochures on what we talked about, but there will also be a spot on our website
with all the information as well.
Assessment
In two years, we will conduct a mass survey to the young adults in the Fargo/
Moorhead area again to see what improvements there have been in the
community regarding mental illness. This will show the firm as well as the
Fargo-Moorhead Community Association the progress that has been made
regarding knowledge and usage of the resources in the area.

Qualifications
Meet the Fargo Team
Cassandra Pedersen, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, graduated from NDSU in
2005 and has been working with young adults ever since. Her first job was at
Prairie St. Johns in Fargo, ND. Here she worked for five years. After this career
Cassandra decided she wanted to work more with the community. At this point,
she started working for the University of North Dakota in their Counseling
Center for three years. She states that after working with these young adults
she realized there was so much more that could be done if someones purpose
for their practice was to educate the public. After those three years she began
the Mental Health Consulting Firm.
Shane Nickelson, Marketing Manager, graduated from Arizona State University
in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design and Marketing. He joined
our Grand Forks team in 2013 where he was in charge of all advertising,
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brochures, handouts, and posters. Also, he designed our Grand Forks website.
These are the same responsibilities he will be holding in the Fargo/ Moorhead
expansion to get it running and maintained.
Kahiye Abdi, Presenter, graduated from University of North Dakota in 2015 with
a Bachelor of Science in Communication. Since graduating, Kahiye has been
interning with Mental Health Consulting Firm working under one of our current
presenters. Kahiye began by doing workshops under supervision for the first six
months. Since then he has worked his way up in becoming one of our best
presenters.
Corporate History and Facilities
Mental Health Consulting Firm is a leader in creating awareness among young
professionals about mental illness. We are a non-profit business who is out to
better the community one city at a time. Our first office was set up in 2013 in
Grand Forks, ND. We have had a lot of success there in presenting the
information in different workshops. In just the past 3 years we have seen an
increase in awareness of mental health as well as an increase in people
reaching out to the resources we provided them with to get help. In Grand
Forks, we have held workshops at a variety of places. These include the
following: universities, local companies, high schools, organizations, and at our
local office. We provide some workshops in our office. This way we can also
accommodate for organizations or groups who want to participate in the
workshop, but may not have the space to hold one.
Extra Training for Our Teams
We pride ourselves in helping the community as much as we can, so we provide
extra training to our employees in crisis prevention. With this training
employees are prepared to properly address any situation that comes up at the
office or during a workshop. Our employees also volunteer for ImAlive, a crisis
hotline, at least once a week to give back to the community.

Budgets
Given our plan and our related expertise, here is the cost of improving the lives of
young professionals in the Fargo/ Moorhead area keeping them in the community.

Benefits
In conclusion, let us summarize the advantages of implementing our proposal and
discuss in depth how the benefits of our proposal outweigh the costs. The initial
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research we have completed shows that mental illness affects young professionals
greatly in the Fargo/ Moorhead area. Our proposed plan will begin addressing this issue
and create a better functioning community. At Mental Health Consulting Firm, we
believe that the best way to deal with the increasing mental issues among young
professionals is to implement workshops that will offer both the knowledge and help
needed to counter the issue.
The positive outcomes of the Mental Health Consulting Firm will outweigh the costs.
Our plan is designed to ensure the mental well-being of young professionals. We will
improve knowledge and outlook on mental health creating a healthier atmosphere for
people to talk about mental illness openly. This will make the young professionals
more productive citizens in the working community and more involved. Improving their
mental status could also prevent young professionals from moving out of the area
because they are able to find a job and feel welcome in the community.
Our workshops also improve the awareness of mental illness and reduce the stigma of
mental health to get more people to talk openly about their mental health status.
Reducing the stigma will build confidence in people with and without a mental illness
to reach out to help others who are struggling. With this built confidence and
knowledge, the young professionals can help spread awareness to other groups in the
community who our company may not have reached yet.
Not only will we be helping the young professionals in the community, we will also be
helping the local businesses. Our workshops will be promoting mental health resources
in a variety of ways. Some of the following are things we will be doing to inadvertently
help these companies get the word out about them: brochures, information on our
website, and a Facebook page. Our Facebook page will include information to help
promote other companies and resources that are available in the area for clients. We
will upload posts and pictures about these resources and companies, as well as create
ads on Facebook to help do more promotion. All of these things combined will bring in
more business for the local mental health resources causing them to thrive.
Thank you for the opportunity and your consideration in allowing Mental Health
Consulting Firm to prepare a proposal. Our team looks forward to hearing from you
regarding our proposal and we would be fortunate to work with you in the near future.
Should you have any questions or concerns please contact, Catherine Wright, CEO, at
(701) 952-9678. At Mental Health Counseling Firm, we appreciate the consideration of
our proposal.

Appendix A: Survey
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Age
Gender
Are you from the F/M area?
On a scale of 1-10, 1 being not very beneficial and 10 being very beneficial, how
beneficial would it be to have a workshop on mental health for young adults (18-25
years of age)?
1

10

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being not at all and 10 being a lot, how much do you believe
mental health affects young professionals (18-25 years of age)?
1

10

Circle any of the following resources you have had experience with or known someone
else to have used.

First Link
ImAlive
The Samaritans
The Village Family Service Center
Saint Sophies
Benson Psychological Services
New Life Center

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Lakeland Mental Health

Prairie St. Johns
Web Based Counseling
Mind over Mood
Recovery Health and Wellness
Group
Mindfulness Group
Renting 101

How many people do you know between the ages of 18-25 who have a mental illness?

1-3
4-6
7-9
10 and above

Have you known anyone between the ages 18-25 in the F/M who has committed or
attempted suicide because of mental health?
Yes/no
If you have known someone from the F/M area, between the ages of 18-25, in or who have
been in the military, do they have a mental illness?
Yes/no
As reported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2009
there were 11.1 % of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 with a mental illness. In
2014, this number has gone up to 20.1%. What do you believe has caused the increase in
mental health issues in young professionals?

What do you believe we can do to improve mental illness in young adults?

What do you believe to be the greatest mental illness in our region and why?

Appendix B: Focus Group Questionnaire

1. As reported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

in 2009 there were 11.1 % of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 with a mental
illness. In 2014, this number has gone up to 20.1%. What do you believe is increasing
mental illness in young adults?

2. What do you believe to be the greatest mental illness in our region and why?

3. Why do you believe mental health would be a problem in keeping young adults in the F/M
area?

4. What resources have you heard of or had experience with in the F/M area? What do you
know about them?

5. If workshops were to be given to young adults addressing resources for mental

illnesses, tips for dealing with
them, and future goal setting do you believe this would be beneficial?

6. What do you believe would be most beneficial to address in a mental health workshop
given to young professionals?

References

Helping Hands Tress [Digital image]. (n.d). Retrieved November 20,2016 from
http://www.clipartsgram.com/download/C3aSUGP

National Institute of Mental Health. (2014). Prevalence of Any Illness Among U.S. Adults
(2014). Retrieved from

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/nsduh-

ami-2014-graph-final_150330.pdf

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2010). Mental Health United
States, 2010. Retrieved from
http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/MHUS2010/MHUS2010/MHUS-2010.pdf