THE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH WORKER

We present here the 6 functions of the community mental health worker (CMH worker) that the project team has proposed as an European "core curriculum" which is useful for the development of training paths.

The functions are organised in terms of capability, a concept that includes the whole of the technical skills, attitudes and knowledge a worker should have. We believe that any Mental Health Worker within the Community should possess these capabilities in order to work effectively in a MH system and in order to promote a philosophy of care and assistance in line with the suggestions of official and non official bodies.

The functions are defined in terms of capacity, as in the excellent work done by "The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health” (1; 2) in which the term competency includes the concept of being able to effectively integrate knowledge, attitudes and skills in complex contexts such as Mental Health.

The work emphasizes the integration between personal characteristics and skills developed, and pays particular attention to the concept of "reflection within practice" and "reflection on practice” (3).

Each function has a commentary, which can be a useful tool for further development of the framework. A detailed description of how the working group has come to define the functions can be found in the appendix.

List of Functions

F1Participation in the Service User Assessment Process
F2 Management of risk
F3 Building working alliances with service users and families or caregivers
F4 Promoting self–management
F5 Supporting social and community integration
F6 Management of the Service.