design a final project that accomplishes one of the following:

(a) a mental illness stigma reduction campaign OR

(b) a new mental health policy OR

(c) a proposal for an innovative program that addresses the needs of people 

with mental illnesses/disorders and/or emotional suffering in our 

community

Each person is responsible for researching their topic, designing a new intervention 

or policy memo or proposed legislation, written as an 8 page final paper.  

In thinking through the elements of your proposal, consider the following 

possibilities and questions (where relevant):

 Consider a society where we don’t have medications to treat disorders 

but have to respond to the problem via an alternative cultural and social 

response to disorders.  What would this response look like?

 In what way is stress related to the mental health problems of people 

with stigmatized identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, SES, sexual 

orientation and: 

a.    Gender

b.   Race

c.    SES

d.   Sexual orientation 

What would a truly interdisciplinary program, intervention, or policy look like—one 

that was based on the methods and observations of several disciplines and practice 

traditions (e.g. Psychiatry, Social Work, Sociology, Anthropology, History, 

Complementary and Alternative Medicines, etc)?  

Format: The research paper should be 8 pages (not including works cited).  

Please follow the following format: 12-point Times New Roman or Arial, double-

spaced, one-inch margins. 

Your research paper requires 5 academic, recent (within last 5 years) 

sources.

-Keep in mind this is NOT a book report, your own supported analysis is needed in 

your arguments. Your sources should be used to support YOUR thesis and 

arguments!

-It is safe to assume, when writing this paper, that your audience has a basic 

understanding of the health topic that you are researching. However, you should 

spend the majority of your time using the feminist strategies used in the course to 

convey your arguments with great depth and detail. 

-Remember that sources are not simply supposed to provide you with data, they 

should be used to support your argument on a variety of levels. This means that 

your sources should be carefully combed and evaluated for main arguments and 

weaknesses, and this should be discussed in the paper. It is NOT enough to simply 

pull a statistic from a paper and plug it into your argument without understanding 

the larger context. 

-No footnotes/endnotes will be allowed in this paper. In-text citations ONLY and 

they must be cited in APA format.