INTRODUCTION & PURPOSES

 

Well performing professionals are essential to high quality care. Unless professionals are educated, trained and developed to meet the needs of service users within the currently emerging models of care, especially community mental health care, services cannot work will or meet the challenges ahead.
In the PSYCHO RESCUE project mental health professionals in six countries developed the following thoughts on a curriculum for the ‘Community Mental Health Worker’ with the above in mind.
We believe that the transition from hospital based to community based services needs comprehensive changes in staff roles, structure and organization of services and training programs and pathways.
Important aspects are:

There is increased emphasis on competent performance of role rather than qualification and status.

As the long stay hospital sector continues to decline, staff will be increasingly employed or redeployed into community settings.

Another major change in mental health care is the focus on the user.

There is also increasing acknowledgement of the importance of enlisting their support as active ‘partners’ in care.

The service users in community mental health care reflect the broad range of citizens in society, e.g. youngsters, elderly, drug addicts, users from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds.

Multidisciplinary working in such a context imposes new demands and challenges on the professionals.

Rigid professional demarcations increasingly fail to reflect current workload requirements and practice.

The list of functions which was the result of the work of the PSYCHO RESCUE project group could be seen as the core competencies – or capabilities, in terms of skills, attitudes and knowledge - for all professionals in mental health care and especially relevant for the core professional of our project: the CMHW.
The recognition that there is a common core of skills, knowledge and attitudes which all professional workers should attain should not obscure the profile of distinctive, professionally specific contributions to the care of service users by the CMHW.
The development of an effective training path should assume suggestions that the workgroup shared and that we believe represent the basic paradigm that permeate the resource kit. This means that behind each training module the staff should consider and act aware that:

Mental illness could be long life and the course of illness is non-linear.

Every person involved in MH as a trainer or as a practitioner should acknowledge his/her attitudes and should demonstrate an understanding of the fundamental importance of relationships to social and psychological well-being.

It is essential when Working in Mental Health to maintain a respectful, non-judgmental and empathic approach to service users and carers at all times.

Service users and workers both bring expertise to the recovery process. 

Learning is a lifelong process.

Professional training must aim to achieve both awareness and competence in the core areas and deliver and maintain specific occupational competence. This implies a need for the establishment of a progressive training continuum, underpinned by occupation standards, that can assure the competence of all disciplines within a multidisciplinary context. These competencies can be reflected in single discipline curricula, but they imply the development of shared learning and common pathways between the disciplines and greater exposure of the disciplines to each other at all levels of training.
It is recommended that the training program for the Psychiatric Community Worker is integrated with the service environment (the community) and is developed and delivered together with service users and carers.
We’ve developed two distinct training pathways for the CMHW: one on a basic level, a 240 hrs two year program for professionals who are experienced in mental health care but without a specific education/ title , and one on an advanced level for professionals who are experienced and educated in mental health care, but new to community mental health care.