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Interventions for Emerging Mental Health Difficulties in Community and Primary Care Settings

Module description

As a CWP you will need to develop an awareness of emerging mental health difficulties in community and health care settings and be able to intervene with CYP, parents / carers and staff in these settings. Two key intervention skills will be taught in this module:

The first core skill will be Psychoeducation. You will be able to provide evidence-based information and psychoeducation to children and young people, or parents / carers and health care staff. Psychoeducation and other preventative measures when working with communities in localities should be responsive to local and potentially diverse views of distress as well as activity limitations and their relation to mental health problems.

You will be taught intervention skills in the delivery of training and psychological support through group workshops both face to face and digitally (of children and young people, parents/carers). Key principles of working with groups will be addressed so that the CWP is able to prepare appropriate materials, manage group processes, deliver training, support confidently, work in partnership with other professionals, and critically evaluate their own performance. CWPs will need to evidence competency in one of these two intervention areas i.e., group work with children or young people or group work with parents.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will work in line with the national curriculum to equip you with a good understanding of the process of psychoeducation and group work in community and health care settings in face to face and virtual settings. They will acquire a framework of key skills and knowledge through teaching, experiential learning, role play, observation, and supervised practice.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. You should be able to demonstrate competence in addressing early indicators of emerging mental health problems in community and primary health care settings
• 2. You should be able to demonstrate skills and knowledge to help parents / carers and children and young people anticipate and manage common problems and support those who are experiencing them.
• 3. You should develop the knowledge and skills to provide interventions to support and manage common problems in community and primary health care settings with a particular focus on how equality, diversity and inclusion and community considerations / adaptations apply to workshops and group work.
• 4. You should acquire skills of particular value in these contexts working with large numbers of children and young people
• 5. You should be able to apply knowledge of understanding and co-working with local communities, local community organisation leaders and local children, families, and young people to provide an offer – that is likely to be acceptable and accessible – of assessment and possible intervention for children and young people who may have emerging mental health difficulties.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. You should gain the ability to summarise basic and essential factual and conceptual knowledge of the subject, and demonstrate a critical understanding of this knowledge
• 7. You should be able to address systematically complex problems which may be framed within unpredictable contexts, think critically, creatively, and independently, and fully appreciate the complexities of the issues

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. You should gain the attributes required to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, challenge received opinion and develop your own criteria and judgement, and to seek and make use of feedback
• 9. You should be able to manage your own learning using the full range of resources of the clinical discipline and with minimum guidance

Syllabus plan

The module content, module-specific learning objectives, style of delivery and assessment for this module are informed by the national curriculum for the training of CWPs to support the use of psychoeducation and group work.

As a CWP you will be required to develop an understanding of psychoeducation and groupwork intervention approaches, they will be needed to deliver psychoeducation and then either group work / workshops with children or young people OR/ Parenting Groups. It will be important to make sure that these different areas of intervention competency are fully represented across individual CYMHS in which the CWPs are embedded:

Psychoeducation: You will be able to provide evidence-based information and psychoeducation to children and young people, parents / carers, and staff.

Evidence-based group work / workshops: You will develop and embed the specialist skills required for working with children and young people in groups / workshops. Key principles of working with groups will be addressed so that as a CWP you will be able to prepare appropriate materials, manage group processes, deliver training and/or support confidently and critically evaluation their own performance

Parenting Groups: You will be able to lead Parenting Groups in community settings and work alongside other staff and parents e.g., transition parenting groups, parenting groups that are universally available for working with behavioural difficulties.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Two summative assessments are required for this module. In all cases re-assessment will be the same as the original assessment. Where you have been referred/deferred for any form of assessment detailed above you will have the opportunity to retake within the period specified above from the date that feedback was provided.

If you pass re-assessments taken as a result of deferral, your re-assessment will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment and the overall module mark will not be capped.

If you pass re-assessment of the presentation taken as a result of referral (i.e., following initial failure in the assessment), the overall module mark will be capped at 50%. If you pass reassessment of the POD/Portfolio taken as a result of referral (i.e., following initial failure in the assessment), the overall module mark will not be capped at 50% as this is summative but not credit bearing.

If you fail re-assessments taken as a result of referral (i.e. following initial failure in the assessment), you will be failed in the module and as a consequence you will be failed in the programme and your registration as a student of the University will be terminated.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Brown, R. (2000) Group processes. Blackwell.
• Burlingame, G. M., & Krogel, J. (2005). Relative efficacy of individual versus group psychotherapy. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 55(4), 607-611.
• Douglas, T. (2000) Basic Group Work. Routledge.
• Joice, A., & Mercer, S., (2010). An evaluation of the impact of a large group psycho-educational programme (Stress Control) on patient outcome: Does empathy make a difference? The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 3, 1-17.
• Kellett, S., Clarke, S., & Matthews, L., (2007). Delivering group psycho-educational CBT in primary care: Comparing outcomes with individual CBT and individual psychodynamic- interpersonal psychotherapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 46, 211-222.
• Kellett, S., Newman, D.W., Matthews, L., & Swift, A., (2004). Increasing the effectiveness of large group format CBT via the application of practise-based evidence. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 32, 231-234.
• Kitchener, N.J., Edwards, D., & Wood, S., (2009). A randomised controlled trial comparing an adult education class using cognitive behavioural therapy (‘Stress Control’), anxiety management group treatment and a waiting list for anxiety disorders. Journal of Mental Health, 18, 307-314
• Morrison, N. (2001). Group cognitive therapy: treatment of choice or sub-optimal option?. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 29(3), 311-332.
• Norton, P. J., & Barrera, T. L. (2012). Transdiagnostic versus diagnosis-specific CBT for anxiety disorders: A preliminary randomized controlled noninferiority trial. Depression and Anxiety, 10, 874-882.
• Tucker, Michelle & Oei, Tian Po. (2007). Is Group More Cost Effective than Individual Cognitive Behaviour Therapy? The Evidence is not Solid Yet. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. 35. 10.1017/S1352465806003134.
• Van Daele, T., Van den Bergh, O., Hermans, D., & Van Audenhove, C. (2013). A psycho- educational approach to stress management: An implementation and effectiveness study. University of Leuven
• White, J., Brooks, N., & Keenan, M., (1995). Stress Control: A controlled comparative investigation of large group therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Process of change. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2, 86-97.
• White, J., Keenan, M., & Brooks, N., (1992). ‘Stress control’: A controlled comparative investigation of large group therapy for generalized anxiety disorder. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 20, 97-114.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – College to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages

Key words search

CWP, Wellbeing Practitioner, PWP, CYP, CBT, Community, children and young people, diversity, equal opportunities, mental health and wellbeing, psychoeducation, group work