Orygen offers Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Sciences (Young People's Mental Health)

Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Sciences (Young People's Mental Health)

Who should do this course?

The course will be of particular interest to health care professionals working in both the adult and adolescent mental health fields and the primary health care sector. This is a postgraduate course that requires an undergraduate qualification or work experience in the field of community development or youth health.

Why do this course?

On completion of this course you will know more about:

• The major theories of development spanning the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
• Ethical and professional issues applicable to working with young clients.
• Recent advances in preventive models of psychiatry, as applicable to young people experiencing serious mental illness.
• Making service delivery more marketable to young clients with serious mental illness.

On completion of the course you will achieve new skills, such as:

• An ability to assess the early signs of serious mental illnesses in young people.
• Designing community awareness interventions that focus on early detection and referral of young people to mental health services.
• Designing comprehensive treatment plans.
• The application of psychosocial interventions in the treatment of primary and secondary morbidity that affect young people and their families.
• The application of optimal approaches to the treatment of young people in inpatient, community-based and home-based contexts.

Course Structure

The course consists of eight subjects, offered online through the Learning Management System at the University of Melbourne, to be completed part-time over a two-year period. The subjects are:

• Theories of Adolescent Development.
• Assessment and Young People, Mental Illness in Young People: The Biopsychosocial-Developmental Perspective I.
• Mental Illness in Young People: The Biopsychosocial-Developmental Perspective II.
• Preventive Community Psychiatry and Young People, Applications of the Preventive Model I:
• Biological Interventions, Applications of the Preventive Model II:
• Psychosocial Interventions, and Service Delivery and Optimising Contexts of Treatment.

Further detail is available in the course handbook, click here to download a copy (3.4MB).

More information on Orygen's graduate education programs can be found here.