>Training and Education
New: from The Centre for Community Welfare Training (CCWT)
- A two day course to provide mental health workers and other professionals with specialised skills in the following areas:
- understanding the link between addiction and psychiatric disability
- AOD assessment including many practical tool
- working with mental health clients who are less than highly motivated to reduce their AOD use
- using a harm reduction approach when appropriate
- new pharmacotherapies to treat AOD dependence, and some old ones!
- helping mental health clients to prevent relapse
CCWT is a programme of the Association of Children's Welfare Services. It has quite a wide range of useful courses in mental health, counselling and related areas.
Several significant learning resources are available free from Midas and our affilliates:
- A practical "How to Run a Dual Diagnosis Group" from Adrian Bradley at Coffs Harbour and the equivalent programme from a Victorian perspective...
- The Alma Street approach to dual diagnosis community care
- The dual diagnosis training programme from Hunter Health can be read and printed direct from the Midas site
- Outcome studies indicating best practice can be found at NIDA
- Dual Diagnosis treatment in the Dandenongs
- The SUMITT treatrment groups described
Midas provides free training for staff of South Western Sydney Area Health Services. Staff of non-government agencies which are funded or part funded by the State Government may also attend these courses free of charge.
Other interested people may attend Midas Courses if all the vacancies have not been taken up locally. A nominal fee is usually charged.
In addition, Midas will set up staff training programmes for Government and non-government agencies who encounter clients who have a dual disorder...recent one day workshops have been provided for Bankstown Department of Community Services, Probation and Parole and the Fairfield/Cabramatta Interagency Group.
Training in Mental Illness and Problematic Substance Use is offered by Wollongong University in conjunction with Royal North Shore Hospital. The Wollongong course is in 2 parts: 5 days intensive then 1 day a month for 6 months.
The Council for Information and Education on Drugs and Alcohol ( CEIDA) offers access to training
C
entral Sydney Area Health Service Psychosis and Substance Use Project conducts compulsory Psychosis and Substance Use Education and Training Workshop to ensure all clinical mental health staff have the skills to effectively manage clients who have both a psychotic illness and a drug/alcohol problem. Participants are provided with an overview of past and current approaches to these issues and participants' attitudes to drugs are explored. Basic drug/alcohol training is covered (e.g., managing withdrawal) and the latest, evidence based "best practice" methods for working with dual disorder are presented.Workshops are held bi-monthly and all clinical staff working in the Central Sydney Area Health Service are required to attend. Non Government Agencies operating within the Area are welcome to attend as are other health professiolnals. Course dates is available from the site link above.
Phone enquiries: (02) 9556 9357.
The NSW Institute of Psychiatry has a dual disorder module, which forms part of its Graduate Diploma in Mental Health. The module is also available as an elective to other students of the University of NSW and as a stand-alone professional development package. The course makes significant use of the Midas Dual Disorders Training and Resource Manual.
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everal good training resources exist on the internet. Some are free, some are inexpensive. None are tailored to Australian conditions but all are worth investigating.Our list of training and support resources includes locally produced manuals, client information sources, videos and other material.
If you offer training, or know of anyone who does, please send the details for inclusion on this page. If you don't know the full story, just send us what you have heard and we'll sniff out the rest!