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Programme summary for PG Dip/Higher Specialist Social Work Award Approved Mental Health Practice (AMHP)

About the programme

This programme is for qualified social workers and other specified mental health professionals to extend and deepen your professional competence and achieve academic qualifications. Social workers will also achieve a professional qualification.

The programme is designed to develop higher specialist knowledge and understanding in social workers and other professionals who are working in mental health services. It enables social workers to complete the Post Graduate Diploma/Higher Specialist Social Work Award: Social Work in Mental Health Services: Approved Mental Health Practitioner (AMHP) route.

It enables other professionals to complete the Post Graduate Diploma. It is an essential requirement for appointment as an Approved Mental Health Practitioner under the Mental Health Act (1983) as amended by the Mental Health Act (2007). The programme meets all of the requirements for AMHP competence prescribed by the General Social Care Council (GSCC) for Approved Mental Health Practitioners.

Post Graduate Diploma

At UEL, we offer you a flexible framework for attaining further academic and professional qualifications. Linked with our collaborative partner, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, we offer the range of Advanced (MA) programmes.

This means that for those of you who choose to do so, having completed your higher specialist level PQ award and/or post graduate diploma at UEL, you can continue with your professional development at the Tavistock on a variety of different PQ programmes all the way up to the level of the Professional Doctorate.

Programme structure

This Post Graduate Diploma is achieved in two semesters within the training facilities of the London Borough of Enfield. Enfield hosts the North East London AMHP training programme on behalf of the North East London AMHP Training Consortium.

This programme is validated by UEL as the Post Graduate Diploma/Higher Specialist Social Work Award in Approved Mental Health Practice, a 120-credit programme and Post Graduate Diploma. Those on the AMHP route undertake a formal programme of learning and are supervised and observed by a qualified AMHP. The learning consists of structured teaching sessions, guided study seminars, supervised practice, and private study, including portfolio preparation.

Career opportunities

You will be eligible to be considered for appointment as an AMHP. The programme will equip you to move more easily to senior practitioner level. This programme will also help if you are considering moving from your current setting or changing your role eg from practitioner to manager or practice educator.

Support

The teaching personnel all have academic and/or practice expertise in their chosen subject. These include AMHP practitioners, lawyers, psychiatrists and mental health service users and carers. We are all interested in practice and in practice-based research. We will support you to build on your own particular mental health practice and to link this with academic conventions. We will help you to write in an appropriate, professional style, basing your written work on your specialist professional role and referencing your use of contemporary mental health and other relevant literature. The GSCC post-qualifying framework encourages inter-professional learning, the involvement of service users and carers throughout the learning and assessment process and close links between programme providers and employers to ensure the relevance of the PQ programmes. All of these characteristics will underpin your learning on this programme. You will benefit from the close support of your AMHP supervisor as the basis of your practice learning. You will be given tutorial support and focussed attention in ‘guided study’ sessions.

Admission

You must:

  • hold a recognised professional qualification in social work, nursing, occupational therapy or psychology
  • be a registered social worker, nurse, occupational therapist or chartered psychologist
  • have two years of post qualifying experience as a practitioner, including a minimum of six months direct experience of working with people with mental disorder

You will also have:

  • local authority or NHS Trust sponsorship
  • a signed agreement from your employer that they will allow you sufficient time off to complete the training and provide you with an appropriate AMHP supervisor

You will:

  • complete an application form and supporting documentation including a self assessment against the selection criteria demonstrating a substantially enhanced level of competence and a critical analytical paper on a mental health topic in which you will show that you can write clearly and in a professional manner and that you have a fully developed ability continuously to improve your practice through critical, analysis and reflection.
  • attend a selection interview. On the basis of the written work and the interview you will be selected because you have shown that you have the professional competence and academic ability to undertake a programme of training at higher specialist/M Level:
  1. Understanding of the value base of the AMHP role and ability to work within it
  2. Understanding of social perspective on mental disorder and ability to view people holistically, taking account of social, physical environmental and developmental factors
  3. Basic understanding of key aspects of mental health, mental capacity and child care law and other relevant policies and procedures
  4. Ability to work assertively and constructively in a multidisciplinary context
  5. Ability to make independent decisions
  6. Ability to handle complex situations of uncertainty, conflict and contradiction where there is a need too make informed and balanced judgements
  7. Ability to network effectively within and cross agency and disciplinary boundaries
  8. Ability to assess and manage risk effectively in a community setting
  9. Ability to take responsibility for putting together packages of care in the community to minimise risk and support people at times of mental heath crisis

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