Community mental health

Recommended Prerequisites

Students should have successfully completed the 1^st phase of the Integrated Psychology Masters.

Teaching Methods

Lectures with audio-visual resources, research, document consultation and interviews with experts, discussion, cooperative learning. Students are invited to participate in scientific activities related to health promotion and prevention, responding to and integrating empirical work in progress.

Learning Outcomes

Students should be able to:
* Identify risk factors and protective  health and well-being issues  of both the individual and collectively
* Reflect on strategies of prevention and intervention of adverse situations, involving cognitive, emotional, behavioral and contextual components 
* Describe the main approaches to working in Community Mental Health
* Examine diagnoses in communities; know and understand intervention programs for mental health (prevention and correction); know and understand procedures for evaluating intervention programs
* Identify the ecological principles for intervention in community settings
* Designing intervention programs based on the paradigm of collaborative research
* Structure and support the application of ecological principles to the processes of social change
* Equate and consider the functions of social support networks

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Definition, evolution and organisation of Community Mental Health services

- Sources

- New therapeutic paradigms

- Public Health and Community Mental Health

- Objectives of work in Community Mental Health (prevention planning and recovery centered on the subject)

- Network intervention and interdisciplinary co-operation. Creating educational programs and developing new forms of indirect intervention

2. Theoretical and technical aspects of Community Mental Health

- Examples, theories and intervention strategies

- Concepts of empowerment, stakeholders, wellness, support, social support, support networks (formal and informal), self-help and mutual aid, crisis;

- Contributions of Ecological Psychology;

- Contributions of the Theory of Systems;

3. Support programmes for families of patients included in therapeutic communities

4. Programs aimed at reducing stigma and discrimination of the mentally ill

5. Guidelines, protocols and tools in Community Mental Health

Head Lecturer(s)

Ana Paula Mendes Correia Couceiro Figueira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Final report : 25.0%
Group work report: 75.0%

Bibliography

Apter, S. J. (1982). Troubled Children, Troubled Systems. N.Y.: Pergamon Press, General Psychology Series.

Bowe, N. (2005). Perspectives in Community Mental Health (a study guide and workbook). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendal/Hunt Publishing Company..

González, A. M., Fuertes, F. C. & García, M. M. (Eds.) (1988). Psicología Comunitaria. Madrid: Textos Visor.

Morgan, S. (1993). Community Mental Helath: practical approach to long-term problems. London: Chapman & Hall.

Ornelas, J. (2008). Psicologia Comunitária. Lisboa: Fim de Século.

Rappapport, J., & Seidman, E. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Community Psychology. NY.: Plenum Pub Corp.

Rose, S. R. (1998). Group work with children and adolescents: prevention and intervention in school and community systems (Sage sourcebooks for the human services. London: Sage Publications.

Thornicroft, G., Szmulkler, G., Muesser, K. T., & Drake, R. (Eds.) (2011). Oxford Textbook of Community Mental Health. Oxford University Press.