Assessing and Enhancing Youth Mental Health in Primary Care - micro-credential

What you will learn

Gain contemporary skills and knowledge for your job now.

There is a growing need to upskill Australia's primary care workforce with youth-specific skills and expertise for working with young people experiencing mental ill-health.

Designed and delivered in collaboration with leading experts in the field, and young people with lived experience, this micro-credential is for qualified or trainee general practitioners, social workers, paediatricians and qualified nurses who are seeking best-practice biopsychosocial approaches when supporting young people accessing primary care for their mental health.

Assessing and Enhancing Youth Mental Health in Primary Care counts for 42.5 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). If you are a GP, you will be eligible to claim RACGP CPD hours for completing this activity.

Explore key factors that contribute to mental ill health in young people

Build your understanding of common factors and developmental issues contributing to mental ill-health in young people, such as access to services, living conditions, and adverse childhood experiences and trauma. You'll gain valuable insights from expert-led discussions on assessing and enhancing the mental health of young people.

Learn effective strategies to appropriately assess risk of suicide and self-harm in young people

Explore critical components for conducting a developmentally appropriate assessment of suicide and self-harm risk in young people experiencing mental ill-health. You'll also learn the key elements for constructing collaborative risk management plans with and for young people.

Gain an evidence-informed approach for conducting interventions with young people

Access real-world case studies and world-class teaching resources designed to enhance your skills in conducting youth-friendly biopsychosocial assessments and case formulations. Learn to utilise a strengths-based approach that tailors interventions to an individual's unique strengths and capabilities. You'll also gain necessary brief intervention strategies for managing mental ill-health in young people.

Write a brief mental health assessment of a young person experiencing mental ill-health

Develop a biopsychosocial assessment and case formulation of a young person experiencing mental ill health that applies best practice practical approaches to clinical care in youth mental health. You'll incorporate an effective safety management plan to manage psychological distress and gain valuable professional feedback on your work.

Designed for fully qualified or trainee general practitioners, social workers, paediatricians and fully qualified nurses working in private and public settings across Australia, this course will equip you with essential skills in providing best-practice mental health care to young people in the primary care setting.

Learners are expected to hold one of the following qualifications: a Nursing degree (or equivalent), a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, a Bachelor or Master of Social Work or an MBBS (or an internationally recognised equivalent). In addition, nurses should be working in primary care, and medical practitioners should have either commenced or completed an accredited training program in general practice (family medicine or equivalent) or paediatrics.

Learning in Assessing and Enhancing Youth Mental Health in Primary Care is equivalent to Level 9 of the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF).

This micro-credential is designed specifically to improve the knowledge, skills, and clinical practice of nurses, GPs, social workers and/or paediatricians working with young people experiencing mental ill-health. It will extend your current scope of practice to meet the growing unmet needs of young people for mental healthcare, providing youth-specific skills and strategies you can effectively utilise when supporting them.

By the end of this course you'll have a greater understanding of best-practice biopsychosocial assessment, suicide and self-harm assessment and management, as well as case formulation frameworks for working with young people experiencing mental ill-health:

• Apply knowledge of evidence-based, best practice approaches to clinical care in youth mental health, including brief intervention strategies.
• Devise a youth-friendly biopsychosocial assessment and case formulation of a young person experiencing mental ill-health.
• Develop a safety management plan for a young person that considers deliberate self-harm or suicide.

This micro-credential runs over eight weeks.

Your total time commitment will be approximately 42 hours max, which includes:

• 10 hours guided study
• 18 - 22 hours self or peer learning
• 10 hours for assessment tasks

• Quizzes on Assessing and Enhancing Youth Mental Health in Primary Care: Weekly quiz comprising 5 questions to assess learning throughout the program (30%)
• Biopsychosocial assessment and case formulation: Written report comprising of a biopsychosocial assessment and case formulation of a young person experiencing mental ill-health based on case study material (70%).