MAKINGtheLINK : a school-based health promotion programme to increase help-seeking for cannabis and mental health issues among adolescents

Aim: There is increasing concern regarding the use of cannabis among adolescents, especially given recent evidence highlighting its link with later mental disorders. Encouraging young people with mental health or drug issues to seek professional help is an important early intervention strategy; however, adolescents are typically reluctant to do so and instead turn to their peers for help. Peers may not have the skills or knowledge required to assist their friends to access professional help. This paper describes the development and evaluation of MAKINGtheLINK, a school-based health promotion programme that promotes help-seeking behaviour for mental health and cannabis use issues among young people.

Methods: The MAKINGtheLINK programme was piloted with 182 Year 10 students at a secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. Forty teachers received the MAKINGtheLINK staff professional development session.

Results: The delivery of the MAKINGtheLINK programme was found to be both acceptable and feasible within a school setting. Students and teachers described it as a fun, engaging, helpful and important programme. Students reported increased confidence and awareness of how to seek help for themselves or a friend, and teachers indicated increased confidence and awareness of how to assist students to seek help for cannabis use and/or mental health problems.

Conclusions: MAKINGtheLINK was successfully implemented within the school curriculum. We believe this is the first school-based programme that specifically focuses on facilitating professional help-seeking for cannabis use and mental health problems among young people, and demonstrates that utilizing peer models for help-seeking is a valuable resource for early intervention initiatives.

Screening and intervention for mental health problems in alcohol and other drug settings: Can training change practitioner behaviour?

Aims: The comorbidity of substance use and mental health problems poses a significant challenge for alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment services. In many cases, AOD practitioners do not have experience or training in identifying or managing mental health conditions. Methods: This project examined the implementation of screening and intervention practices for mental health disorders among AOD clients. Training and supervision was provided to 20 AOD practitioners across five sites in four agencies with a focus on enhancing skills in detection of, and intervention for, mental health conditions among their clients. A package developed for this purpose, known as PsyCheck, was used. A random file audit was undertaken to examine changes in detection of mental health conditions. Findings: There were significant improvements in detection after training and supervision, with detection rates almost doubling in this time. Conclusions: Training and supervision using the PsyCheck package appears to have the potential to improve mental health detection and intervention in AOD services. This study shows promise for the implementation of mental health intervention in AOD services.

Telephone survey of service-user experiences of a telephone-based mental health triage service

The participation of service users in all aspects of mental health service delivery including policy development, service planning and evaluation is increasingly an expectation of contemporary mental health care. Although there are a growing number of publications reporting service-user perspectives in the evaluation of mental health services, little attention has been paid to the views of service users about mental health triage services. The purpose of the study reported here was to examine service-users' (consumers and informal carers) experiences of a telephone-based mental health triage service. Using a framework developed from the World Health Organisation's elements of responsiveness, we conducted structured telephone interviews with service users who had contacted a telephone-based mental health triage service in regional Victoria, Australia. The main findings of the study were that consumers experienced more difficulty than carers in accessing the service and that, although most participants were satisfied, only a minority reported being involved in decision-making. Further work is needed to improve accessibility of mental health triage services and to investigate barriers to consumer self-referral. Professional development and practice support systems should be established to support mental health triage nurses in the development of collaborative, consumer-focused care.

Is diagnosis enough to guide interventions in mental health? Using case formulation in clinical practice

While diagnosis has traditionally been viewed as an essential concept in medicine, particularly when selecting treatments, we suggest that the use of diagnosis alone may be limited, particularly within mental health. The concept of clinical case formulation advocates for collaboratively working with patients to identify idiosyncratic aspects of their presentation and select interventions on this basis. Identifying individualized contributing factors, and how these could influence the person's presentation, in addition to attending to personal strengths, may allow the clinician a deeper understanding of a patient, result in a more personalized treatment approach, and potentially provide a better clinical outcome.

Database of peer review publications written by occupational therapists about mental health

An Excel spreadsheet which includes every peer reviewed publication written by occupational therapists in mental health since 2000. It is updated each January to include the previous years publications. Information recorded includes author number, author designation, bibliographic details (i.e. title, journal), categorisation according to doing/being/becoming/belonging, levels of evidence and days between submission and acceptance, and acceptance and publication.

Understanding social work practice in mental health

Book review of: Understanding social work practice in mental health, by Vicki Coppock & Bob Dunn, 2010.