New Horizons? Shaping learning and teaching about mental health: From specialist module to mainstream learning Jill Anderson and Hilary Burgess

Shifting the focus from: addressing problems of mental ill-health to: improving the mental well-being of all - as well as addressing problems of mental ill-health

Shifting the focus: Why? Policy initiatives, such as: New Horizons, 2010 (England) Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland, 2009 Mental Health Promotion Action Plan for Wales and University Challenge: a wellbeing approach to quality in higher education (NEF, 2008)

Underpinned by emergent understanding of. . . a preventive, public mental health agenda links between inequality, disability and mental ill-health links between mental well-being and physical health links between childhood trauma and mental ill health mental health as a continuum: thriving - ‘stable’ – stressed – unwell mental capital

What might this mean for social work education? [1] We need to help students to get a sense of their own mental well-being and strategies to support this eg stress management. Important at start of course (and throughout) - to build resilience, identify opportunities for support, and de-stigmatise and de-marginalise mental ill health. A focus on student wellbeing

What might this mean for social work education? [2] Learning about mental health promotion and the prevention of mental ill health more explicitly in teaching relating to: children and young people parents older people adults with disabilities A more integrated curriculum

What might this mean for social work education? [3] Can this focus be extended so that the lived experience of educators and of students too can be drawn upon? The stories of service users and carers can help students: relate to their own lived experience of stress/distress reconsider distinctions between service user and professional (staff/student). A broader understanding of lived experience as a resource in learning and teaching

Where? Induction week: focus on students pre-existing understandings of well-being Human Growth and Development Communication Skills Practice Learning Specialist modules Where else?

Mental well-being as a threshold concept for social work? Threshold concepts are key to understanding ways of thinking and practising in a given discipline. They are ‘like a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something’. Transformative Integrative Irreversible Bounded Troublesome

Threshold concepts . . . “. . . change forever the way you see the subject. They open up new perspectives; they make sense of ideas; new material ‘falls into place’ with their aid. And without them you will be forever going through the motions of understanding, without really ‘getting’ it. You might even get qualified in the discipline and not get some of it until much later after years in practice”. Atherton, 2008

Mental well-being as a threshold concept for social work? A ‘jewel in the curriculum’: a potentially powerful transformative point in the student’s learning experience. Educators need to: listen for understanding provide a holding environment for the toleration of confusion expect the recursive (looped) process of learning Land et al, 2006 (summarised in Cousin, 2006)

Mental well-being in the curriculum How can learning and teaching about mental wellbeing be organised so that this concept can be grasped? Where should it be placed within the curriculum? What (and how) do you teach now that might be a useful exemplar? How can this be taken into planning processes within HEIs and externally (e.g. Social Work Reform Board)?

Further reading Atherton, J.S. (2008) Support site for University of Bedfordshire PCE programme: Thresholds (simple account)   [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.bedspce.org.uk/threshold_topics.htm   Accessed: 8 March 2010 Cousin, G. (2006) An introduction to threshold concepts. Planet Special Issue on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: 4. Tew, J. & Anderson, J. (2004) The mental health component of the new degree in social work - starting a debate, Social Work Education, 23 (2), 231-240. Tew, J. (2002) Going social: championing a holistic model of mental distress within professional education, Social Work Education , 21(2), 143-155 

Resources and Contact details Mental Health in Higher Education www.mhhe.heacademy.ac.uk Living and Learning, Learning and Teaching ~ Conference Proceedings ~ www.mhhe.heacademy.ac.uk/livingandlearning/proceedings Jill Anderson j.anderson@lancaster.ac.uk Hilary Burgess h.burgess@soton.ac.uk