Event details
There is a great deal of professional and statutory guidance that expects clinicians to involve the families of people during and following an acute mental health crisis. And yet, Coroner’s Prevention of Future Deaths reports, and investigations following homicides when the perpetrator had a diagnosed mental illness, regularly point to the lack of meaningful engagement of the family, the failure to listen to their views, experiences and needs, or to offer them support and information to keep their family member safe.
Martha’s rule, which is to be extended to mental health services, will also require good working relationships with families. Making Families Count Life Beyond the Cubicle project was funded by NHS England (HEE South East Region legacy funds). The project’s resources were co-created with patients, family carers and clinicians, tested in eleven NHS Trusts, and independently evaluated. The resources have been shown to encourage clinicians to work well with family and friends in order to improve care, avoid harm and reduce deaths. This training is offered to support Trusts and social care agencies to embed effective working with family carers across their workforce.
It is participative and interactive, and explores the key reasons clinicians find it challenging to work well with family carers, with time to share and explore good practice and share experiences of approaches taken to improve patient care and family involvement. The Life Beyond the Cubicle eLearning resources are available free to health and social care professionals via the NHS England eLearning platform. NHS Trusts can download the modules and upload them to their own Learning and Development system.
Who should attend:
This course is suitable for anyone working in Health and Social Care whose work brings them into contact with people experiencing mental health crises, and whose role offers opportunities to facilitate group discussions and learning.
Key learning objectives:
- Consider why and how working well with family carers can improve patient care and safety.
- Become familiar with the Training Guide to feel confident to use the video and audio resources in the Life Beyond the Cubicle resources with groups in their workplace.
- Learn about approaches to planning group work with adult learners.
- Learn about ways to negotiate course content with adult learners.
- Learn about research into the needs and experiences of family carers.
- Reflect on their own values about family carers and how these might affect their practice.
- Consider key barriers experienced by clinicians to engaging well with family carers and how these can be addressed in group learning.
- Reflect on their experiences of key issues in working well with family carers, including language, confidentiality, assumptions and safety planning and how these can be addressed in group learning.
- Consider developments they would like to make to their own practice.
- Start planning how they will use the Training Guide and resources in their own workplace.