About this course

Taking place over twenty weeks, this online module offers the opportunity to consolidate and demonstrate specialist skills in the field of perinatal mental healthcare – with the aim of improving the quality of care, clinical outcomes and experience of service users.

Participants will study key theoretical ideas, contemporary best practice and relevant research, while also strengthening their capacities for reflection and resilience, and developing advanced skills in areas such as communication, leadership and decision-making.

Clear links will be made between academic learning and clinical practice – ensuring that the training is fully relevant and applicable to all participants, and empowering practitioners to put the learning to use in their work setting.

A range of teaching methods will be used, including didactic teaching, small group discussion, case scenarios and reflective practice – all overseen by our expert clinician-tutors.

Themes covered in the module include:

• Assessment
• Mother-infant relationship and the experience of the baby
• Partners and intimate relationships
• Depression and anxiety disorder
• Bipolar disorder and psychosis
• Personality Disorder
• Pregnancy loss, infertility and complex pregnancy related issues
• Child and adult safeguarding
• Interventions
• Leadership

Various key issues are also considered throughout the course, underpinning discussion of each theme. These include: the safeguarding of adults and children, culture and difference, collaborative working, women’s own experience of perinatal mental disorders and care, and legal issues.

This module aims to:

• enable perinatal practitioners to manage complex clinical work
• support participants to consider assessment, risk, relationships, communication and self-reflection in the context of different clinical disorders
• encourage participants to integrate current evidence into their clinical practice
• develop participants’ self-reflection skills
• promote leadership development
• help participants to support the learning of others within the course and in their work environments
• emphasise the importance of the perspectives of women, infants, partners and families throughout the perinatal pathway
• improve patient safety
• improve the experience of women and families in perinatal mental health services.

By the end of the module, participants will have:

• an understanding of the range of mental disorders, risks and treatments in the perinatal period and the effects these may have on the woman, her partner and the developing infant
• an understanding of theoretical ideas, contemporary best practice and relevant research in the perinatal mental health clinical setting
• the ability to sensitively consider the diversity of human experience (including culture, difference, inequality and disability) and the effects of these factors on the woman, partner and infant’s experience as well as the experience of the professional
• the ability to skilfully describe examples of complex clinical work while demonstrating the application of theoretical learning from the course
• the capacity to summarise and communicate learning from academic sources, and reflect on how this relates to clinical situations and potential improvements in clinical practice
• the ability to effectively communicate workplace reflection and ideas in writing
• the capacity to relate observations of what is happening in clinical situations, including those which are emotionally difficult, while observing one’s own thoughts and feelings
• the ability to manage, describe and reflect on complex and difficult interactions and situations with women, their partners and families, and with colleagues.