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IAPT Applied Clinical Practice

Module description

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Applied Clinical Practice Placement module will prepare you for a clinically active extended placement within an IAPT mental health service, help you reflect on your practice to consolidate clinical skills development and support personal and professional development. During the placement
you will be working as an honorary employee under supervision and therefore your time and the content of the placement provided is managed and led by the service.

To undertake this module, you must have successfully passed all elements of assessment within PYCM067 Engagement and Assessment of Patients with Common Mental Health Problems and PYCM096 Evidence-Based Low-Intensity Treatment for Common Mental Health Problems. This module is non-condonable and has a 100% attendance requirement. Should you miss any hours of placement you must make up this time in the clinical setting and record this in a formalised action plan before the module can be completed. Should you not meet the clinical or academic requirements of this module you will fail the module and so fail the MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical) programme. You will be required to produce a portfolio of evidence demonstrating achievement of the required clinical outcomes during placement that the service manager or supervisor will then ratify, if they agree that you have met them and provided sufficient evidence of doing so.

You must adhere to the BPS Code of Conduct, BPS Social Media Guidelines and service governance requirements, policies and procedures in the placement at all times, including management of risk and confidentiality as well as safeguarding. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are familiar with the requirements of your specific placement area and its policies and procedures. This module cannot be passed if you are not able to complete the module due to misconduct, a fitness to practice issue or due to removal from the placement due to a breach of the employee regulations for the area in which the placement takes place.

Module aims - intentions of the module

In this module you will apply your clinical competency in low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy to work directly with patients experiencing a range of common mental health problems and enhance knowledge of applied practice in IAPT. Pre-placement teaching will prepare you to manage wider challenges associated with working within a mental health setting and the working environment more generally. These include team working, enhancing personal resilience, responding to novel and unfamiliar problems, collaboration (respecting the views and values of others, taking initiative and leading others) and using supervision effectively. Throughout, and at the end of the placement, supported group-based reflective classes will enable you to gain a critical appreciation of ways to adapt your clinical practice to accommodate groups of patients that represent diversity, consider and reflect on challenges such as managing structure (identifying key demands of the task, setting clearly defined goals, responding flexibly to changing priorities) and time management.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

• 1. Critically reflect on NHS, professional body and service procedures, policies and values
• 2. Critically reflect on the use of supervision to enhance professional and personal development
• 3. Critically reflect on power issues in professional/patient relationships and apply these to clinical and professional practice
• 4. Demonstrate knowledge of, and commitment to a non-discriminatory, recovery-orientated values base to mental health care and to equal opportunities for all and encourage people’s active participation in every aspect of care and treatment
• 5. Critically evaluate theoretical ideas, research evidence and ethical codes of conduct to the treatment and support of patients

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

• 6. Apply the NHS constitution, professional body, service procedures, policies, values and placement regulations to inform placement practice
• 7. Effectively manage a case load of patients with common mental health problems efficiently and safely whilst ensuring prompt and efficient access to care for patients on the worker’s case load including referral to step up and signposted services
• 8. Demonstrate clinical competency working with patients, including those representing diversity
• 9. Operate within your own level of competence and boundaries of competence and role knowing where to seek support if personal competency recognised as being insufficient
• 10. Effectively engage with case management and clinical skills supervision to enhance clinical competency and support on-going personal development

ILO: Personal and key skills

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

• 11. Operate effectively as part of a team
• 12. Critically reflect on personal practice, set personal learning goals and evaluate progress
• 13. Apply skills to enhance personal resilience
• 14. Critically reflect on personal practice, set personal learning goals and evaluate progress

Syllabus plan

The content, module-specific learning objectives, style of delivery and assessment for this module will support placement engagement and enable you to develop your clinical competency and support on-going personal and professional development. This module will therefore begin before the placement and support clinical, personal and professional reflection throughput the placement. Content will therefore focus on the knowledge and skills necessary to prepare for the placement with reflective practice supported during and at the end of the placement to consolidate and enhance clinical, personal and professional development. University directed learning will be set throughout the placement to support personal reflection and on-going development.

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

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to resit the failed assessment. The module mark given for re-assessment as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

If a placement outcome is not achieved, a three-way action plan will be initiated to allow a further limited period of time for the outcome to be achieved. If the outcome is not achieved within the date agreed in the action plan you will fail the assessment and this will result in a fail overall on the module and on the award of the MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical) programme.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bennett-Levy, J., Richards, D., Farrand, P. et al (2010). Oxford Guide to Low Intensity CBT Interventions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Department of Health (2015). The NHS Constitution: The NHS Belongs to Us All. London: Department of Health. 
• Farrand, P. (2020). Low-Intensity CBT Skills and Interventions. London: SAGE.
• Haarhoff, B. & Thwaites, R. (2014). Reflection in CBT. London: Sage Publications.
• Hughes, J. & Youngson, S. (2009). Personal Development and Clinical Psychology. Chichester: Wiley.
• National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (2018). The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Manual. Retrieved online from: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/iapt-manual-v4.pdf
• Richards, D. & Whyte, M. (2011). Reach Out: National Programme Student Materials to Support the Delivery of Training for Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners Delivering Low Intensity Interventions. Rethink. Department of Health: London.

Key words search

Supervision, professional practice, placement, competency development, personal and professional development