Mental Health and Distress: Collaborative Curriculum Development

The above symposium was held at Lancaster University on 12-13 June 2013, attended by 30 people.  

Twitter hashtag: #mhcurr

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The event was aimed at those involved in the design and delivery of qualifying social work curricula.  It took, as its starting point, the College of Social Work Curriculum Guide on Mental Health and Distress and included people with a range of experience including teaching, learning, lived experience of mental distress, research and mental health practice.  Educators and students from other disciplines were involved, to enable us to capitalise on insights from other disciplines, and to disseminate the guide.

The following materials were circulated in advance:

• Information pack, including programme.  This provides an overview of the event.
• Participant List
• Preparation Form - to help facilitate dialogue on the first day.
• Text of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' - used in the book group
• Burning Issues in Learning and Teaching about Mental Health - on which some of the thinking in the curriculum guide was based. 

Outputs of the symposium: 

• Event report on storify
• Links to film clips shown at the symposium
• Social media resources 
• Links to materials on book clubs
• Event evaluation

Supported by the Higher Education Academy health and social care cluster, this symposium built on the Living and Learning, Learning and Teaching conference, held at Lancaster University in 2010.  See here for a full list of papers emerging from that event.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A key theme of the symposium was the notion of uncertainty, and the need to take risks in teaching.

A pedagogy for uncertain times has itself to be uncertain.  It is open, it is daring, it is risky, it is, itself unpredictable. . .  A pedagogy for uncertainty will be ontologically disturbing and enthralling all at once.  It will be electric, as one move sparks another and in unpredictable ways. . . This pedagogy is a form of restrained anarchy; even a disciplined anarchy – with its spaces and its risks

Barnett, R. (2007) A Will to Learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/ Open University Press, p137

A follow up mhhehub chat on the topic of the use of lived experience in learning and teaching about mental health took place on Tuesday 18 June, hosted by the My Mad Space group on the mhhehub.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional mhhe resources, referred to in the course of the event:

• Mental Health in Higher Education: a decade of activity - with links to key outputs
• 'Resource sheet on developing emotional intelligence, resilience and skills for maintaining personal wellbeing in students of health and social care'

Bundlr resources on:

• Academic wellbeing
• Looking after ourselves
• Stress and the caring professions

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have additional resources to share, queries or suggestions then please tweet them using #mhcurr or post them as comments below.

Many thanks to all who contributed to this event - either virtually or in person.

Do join the mhhehub - enhancing learning and teaching about mental health, across the disciplines in higher education - and/or follow us on twitter.