Question 1

Write about your inquiry. What made you interested in this question? Briefly, tell the story of your own
experience with your chosen topic. (If you did the pre-writing before the research proposal, you may
have most of this written already.)

My inquiry revolved around depression in teens and young adults. The main question I started with was
“How can teens find better resources for mental health?” The interest for this question came from my
experience with mental health issues as well as my close friends who I have watched battle with it.
During my sophomore year of high school, a close friend of mine attempted suicide by swallowing pills.
Fast forward to the spring break of this school year, and another close friend attempted suicide but
survived as well. Both had family issues as well as ones with school. What I was thinking about when I
was brainstorming for an inquiry question was these two events. I started to wonder if there was a
better way to prevent suicide attempts. Is there a better method to parenting that can prevent feelings
of worthlessness? Feelings that I personally battle with helped bring me to the conclusion that I wanted
to do an inquiry question based on preventing mental health issues becoming so bad that they consume
the person they torment.

Question 2

Why is your question important? Who else would want to know about what you are inquiring into? How
many people are affected by your topic? Why should anyone care about this?

My question is important because mental health issues concern so many teens and young adults in
today’s society. There are more and more being affected by depression and anxiety which is why more
people should care about it. There seems to be a lack of awareness or when people try to create
awareness, it gets turned into a joke, which doesn’t solve the issue at hand. The people that would
want to know about what I’m inquiring into would be teens, young adults, and the parents of children
who struggle with mental health issues. A rough estimate on how many people are affected by mental
illness is about million. This number changes all the time and the statistic can never be completely
accurate, but it does give an idea on the large amount of the people affected by mental illness. People
should care about this topic because people are dying due to mental illness. It’s a topic that should be
taken seriously since it’s a real issue that so many people struggle with.

Question 3

In your search, who has made a significant contribution to the conversation on this topic? What have
they said, and how does that relate to your inquiry question? What important questions do these other
voices raise for you?

There has not been a specific person who has made a significant contribution to the conversation on this
topic. It is pretty wide-spread between state governments, professors who participate in research, and
organizations such as Mental Health America who provide information on mental health. The things
they have said are that mental health is an issue that needs to be addressed. There also needs to be a
new method of approaching a form of care for people who deal with mental illnesses. This relates to my
inquiry question in the sense that more resources need to be available for teens and young adults so
that they can receive proper care for their mental illnesses. The important questions these other voices
raise for me are “what types of resources are already available?” At first, I had originally thought of just
implementing more resources into the mental health care system but I had neglected the thought of
what types of care were already available.

Question 4

What was the most pervasive and convincing answer to your inquiry question? In the end, whose voice
was the most convincing? What might you add to the conversation? What do you want to say?

The most pervasive and convincing answer to my inquiry question was the Massachusetts Child
Psychiatry Access Project’s proposed solution of implementing a system that provides rapid access to
child psychiatry resources (like education and referral assistance). The specific answer I interpreted
from this project was that a system needs to be put in place in which supplies quick access to mental
health care. More rapid health could provide quicker recovery time which then creates a faster cycle of
taking in struggling patients and sending them out better mentally. The voice that was most convincing
was the one coming from the successful project. The state of Massachusetts was the one providing the
funding for the MCAP and hearing about a project that had some success is definitely the one I believe
the most and would trust the most. The only thing that I would add to the conversation for this specific
project would be to make sure and consider the availability for all types of families. The ones who are
low-income and come from lower income neighborhoods are going to be the ones who struggle to find
convenient care they can actually afford. This is why I would make sure availability is something that is
being strongly considered.

Question 5

What have you come to understand about the topic that you didn't fully appreciate when you began
your inquiry? What difference will the discoveries you made about your question make in your life? In
the lives of others (potential audience)?

The thing that I have come to understand about the topic that I didn’t fully appreciate when I began my
inquiry was that there are systems implemented into society and are available, there is just a more
technical side to all of this. It’s not a simple process to make all mental health care available to
everyone who needs it. There is a lot concerning insurance coverage as well as the shortage in the
mental health work-force to consider as well. The discoveries I made about my question will make one
main difference in my life. When I encounter people, who struggle with mental illness, I will consider
the fact that they may not be able to casually get help. For my close friends, they struggled to find the
care they needed, but one eventually did. When this happened, it put this thought in my head that all
mental health care could be easily accessed if one tried hard enough. After my inquiry research, I have
come to the realization that there is a lot more to consider when trying to find the help you need. The
differences it could make in the lives of others would be that they could possibly keep the same things in
mind that I now have to. This could possibly lead to them realizing that the system is a lot more difficult
than they once thought. If this happened, awareness could be brought toward mental health care and
hopefully one day good changes will be made.

Question 6

What do you remain curious about? What questions remain unresolved? What directions would more
inquiry take if you were to continue? What new questions were raised by this inquiry?

The things I remain curious about are the actual different systems we have now for mental health care.
The most common one that everyone thinks about is therapy but there are obviously lots more based
off the research I did for this inquiry question. The questions that remain unresolved are the ones
concerning the availability of mental health resources that are already implemented. I saw answers to
my actual inquiry question; however, this question seems to have a more ambiguous answer that I could
not find during my research. As for the directions more inquiry would take if I were to continue would
be toward researching the current standing of the mental health care system. While I was researching
for my question in the five sources, I was trying to find the theoretical answers rather than what the
current system is now for mental health care. The new questions that were raised by this inquiry were
ones concerning the current system as well as the future plans that are in the making by organizations
as well as state governments.