Program Overview

---

HLSC651 - Holistic Individual Centred Mental Health Practice

Year

2023

Credit Points

10

Campus Offering

No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.

Prerequisites

Nil

Unit Rationale, Description, and Aim

Best practice in mental health care delivery must reflect a team approach that is holistic, culturally safe, and recovery-oriented to assessment, care planning, implementation, and evaluation. This approach to care delivery supports the individual in their recovery journey and assists them in achieving a fulfilling life as determined by the person themselves, within their already existent relationships and social networks.

The focus of the unit is on assessment of individual care needs, care planning, and care implementation using a person-centred approach. Students will explore how the therapeutic relationship forms the basis of a collaborative approach to assessment and care planning with individuals.

The aim of this unit is to prepare students to provide culturally safe, holistic recovery-oriented care for people experiencing a mental illness in a variety of clinical settings.

Learning Outcomes

To successfully complete this unit, students will be able to demonstrate they have achieved the learning outcomes detailed below.

• LO1: Describe how a holistic person-centered approach to practice is integrated in a coordinated care model that protects the individual's rights, respects diversity, and promotes recovery.
• LO2: Explain how the therapeutic relationship is central to providing care that is respectful of the individual's choice, experience, and circumstances and is based on critical reflection/analysis with the individual ensuring their preferences and self-determination requirements.
• LO3: Utilize a range of communication skills to establish and maintain therapeutic relationships in order to undertake appropriate holistic assessments to deliver culturally safe, holistic, suitable evidence-based therapeutic interventions for individuals requiring mental health care and support their families/carers, significant others, and/or key people involved in their care.
• LO4: Critically reflect on the impact of integrating a holistic person-centered approach to practice toward creating strategies that facilitate the individual's personal recovery and contribute to the common good.

Graduate Attributes

• GA1: Demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity.
• GA3: Apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making.
• GA4: Think critically and reflectively.
• GA5: Demonstrate values, knowledge, skills, and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession.
• GA6: Solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account.
• GA7: Work both autonomously and collaboratively.
• GA8: Locate, organize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.

Content

Topics will include:

Holistic Care

• Theoretical Concepts
• Paradigms of holistic practice

Biopsychosocial Assessment and Management

• Common mental health alterations and disorders and related pathophysiology
• Biopsychosocial assessment, intervention, and evaluation
• Psychopharmacology and individual preferences
• Applying the principles of recovery to individual service plans (ISP), advanced directives, and wellness recovery action plans (WRAP)
• Plan culturally safe care that takes account of the unique preferences, choices, and expectations of mental health care of the individual, their family/carers, and significant others.

Advanced Therapeutic Communication

• Principles of therapeutic communication
• Engagement
• Counselling

Communication Skills for Identifying and Facilitating Change in Health Behaviour

• Motivational interviewing
• Mindfulness

Evidence-Informed Therapies

• Brief Individual and Family therapy
• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Learning and Teaching Strategy and Rationale

This unit is offered in online mode, and it is expected that students will be engaged in employment where they have ongoing contact with people who require mental health care. The active learning approaches applied in this unit are flexible and inclusive, allowing students the opportunity to analyze and critically evaluate approaches to providing holistic recovery-oriented care in mental health practice.

Assessment Strategy and Rationale

The assessment strategy used allows for the progressive development of knowledge and skills necessary for the student to be able to utilize a holistic person-centered and recovery-oriented approach in mental health practice in a variety of clinical settings.

Overview of Assessments

• Assessment Task 1: Written Assessment: Provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of the theories underpinning their clinical practice. (50%)
• Hurdle Assessment: Clinical Portfolio - Clinical Assessment Tool: Provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their learning regarding mental health care practice from a clinical perspective. (Pass/Fail)
• Assessment Task 2: Critical Reflection: This provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate knowledge and critical reflection of biopsychosocial assessments and a range of therapeutic interventions utilized in mental health care over the course of the semester. (50%)

Representative Texts and References

• Adams, M., & Koch, R. (2013). Pharmacology connections to nursing practice. (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson.
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2009). Measuring the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Cat. No. IHW24. Canberra
• Coombs, T., Crookes, P., & Curtis, J. (2013). A comprehensive mental health nursing assessment: variability of content in practice. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 20(2), 150-155
• Cox, L. & Taua, C. (2013). Socio-cultural considerations and nursing practice. In J. Crisp, C. Taylor, C. Douglas & G. Rebeiro (eds), Fundamentals of Nursing (4th edn). Sydney: Elsevier, pp. 320–340.
• Foster, K., Marks, P., O'Brien. A. & Raeburn, T. (2020). Mental health in nursing, 5th ed. Elsevier
• Happell, B., Cowin, L., Roper, C., Lakeman, R. & Cox, L. (2013). Introducing mental health nursing: a service-user orientated approach. Crow's Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
• Hercelinskjy, G. & Alexander, L. (2020). Mental health nursing: applying theory to practice. Cengage: Singapore.
• Jones, K., & Creedy, D. (2013). Health and human behaviour (3rd ed.). South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press.
• Leahy, R. (2012). (Ed). Treatment plans and interventions for depression and anxiety disorders (2nd ed.). New York: London: Guilford Press
• Meadows, G., Grigg, M., Farhall J., McDermott F., Fossey E., & Singh, B (2012). Mental Health in Australia. Collaborative Community Practice (3rd ed.). South Melbourne, Vic: Oxford University Press.