The Education and Training for Change Programme: Part 2: The Use of a Mutual Support Model to Inform Staff Development

This article looks at the staff development strategy devised as part of the Education and Training for Change (ETCH) programme for Basildon & Thurrock Services for people with learning disabilities. The strategy covers all staff in the service, and takes account of the needs of staff facing possibly imminent hospital closure. The model of mutual support that underpins the strategy is described: it offers a positive view of change and an interpretation of hospital closure that has implications for both training provision and service management.     

The problem is outside: Staff and client behavior as a function of external events

Data collected in the process of studying the development and functioning of a prerelease program for adjudicated adult offenders provided the opportunity to test the hypothesis that the actions of a parent organization influence the within program behaviors of clients and rehabilitation staff. It is demonstrated that changes in the parent organization's behavior toward the program were accompanied by changes in (a) the staff's perceptions of clients, (b) the staffs actions toward clients, (c) client attitudes, and (d) client behaviors. Discussion focuses on the need to view rehabilitative programs as continually influenced by external and extrinisic factors.This research was supported by grant #70-DF296 from the U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Agency.     

Clinical research: a key to clinical training

Rational clinical decision making is at the core of any medical field, including psychiatry. Although clinical decision making should be based on reasoning logically from sufficient hard data, the process is often short-circuited; hypotheses are considered fact or causality is inferred where only association exists. This report describes how clinical research protocols provide a structure that helps train clinicians to reduce these errors. A good research design forces articulation and evaluation of hypotheses and prevents premature assumption of causality. The authors present case examples which show that clinical research can serve as in-service training for staff clinicians.     

The Use of Co-Therapy with a Reflecting Mirror as a Supervisory Tool

Abstract

A training practicum for master's and doctoral students in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) at Florida State University employed co-therapy with the use of a reflecting mirror as the primary supervisory techniques. These students did not have a master's degree in MFT and it was believed that they would benefit from co-therapy with their supervisors-in-training. While traditional supervisory techniques were also utilized (e.g., pre-and post-session reviews, group supervision, and videotape reviews), co-therapy, along with the unique use of a reflecting mirror approach, were considered to be the most useful supervision and training tools by the practicum supervisor, the supervisors-in-training, and the trainees.     

Innovations on a shoestring: a study of a collaborative community-based Aboriginal mental health service model in rural Canada

Background  

Collaborative, culturally safe services that integrate clinical approaches with traditional Aboriginal healing have been hailed as promising approaches to ameliorate the high rates of mental health problems in Aboriginal communities in Canada. Overcoming significant financial and human resources barriers, a mental health team in northern Ontario is beginning to realize this ideal. We studied the strategies, strengths and challenges related to collaborative Aboriginal mental health care.     

The general hospital as a center of biopsychosocial training

Utilization of general hospitals as training sites for undergraduate and graduate medical education provides special opportunities for integration of biologic, psychologic, and social factors in health care. For medical students, the general hospital environment ideally facilitates learning a core of psychiatric knowledge and the biopsychosocial approach to all illness while attracting some students to psychiatric careers. By spending much of their internship year in the general hospital, psychiatric residents integrate psychiatry into the rest of medicine and develop collegial relations with nonpsychiatrists. Residency training in the general hospital perpetuates this integrative experience and allows in-depth training in consultation-liaison psychiatry. Despite the multiple advantages of general hospitals in training students and residents, limitations of this setting also exist.     

Implementation of a Computerized Psychiatric Assessment Tool at a DUI Treatment Facility: A Case Example

Psychiatric comorbidity is common among patients in a variety of treatment settings, yet treatment providers seldom use standardized mental health assessments to identify these problems. Using standardized assessment tools gives practitioners and clients the opportunity to tailor treatment and aftercare efforts to a potential problem, and trains practitioners to provide valid and reliable measurements of mental health. Despite the benefits, there are barriers to implementing formal assessment tools. This paper discusses the barriers the authors encountered and the strategies they used to implement a standardized mental health assessment at a state-licensed Driving Under the Influence (DUI) offender treatment program.