Msc forensic mental health (with elft) wolfson institute of preventive medicine

Structure

The MSc Forensic Mental Health comprises four 30-credit modules and a dissertation valued at 60 credits, all of which are compulsory.

This course if offered full time for one year and two years for part time study.

Full-time students will complete all five compulsory modules within one year of study, for a total of 180 postgraduate credits. The clinical placement (Module 4) is designed to run concurrently with Module 3 (Psychosocial Perspectives on Personality Disorder) to enable students to make use of examples from their placement practice within the seminars and work discussion groups. Students will be expected to identify potential topics for a dissertation (Module 5) early in Semester One and to pursue this topic diligently throughout all three semesters of the programme.

For part-time students, the pathway is designed to fit with the requirements of professionals including psychiatry trainees already working in forensic psychiatric or comparable services. Students will complete core clinical and theoretical learning - Modules 1 and 2 - in their first year of study, and then proceed to complete the research and dissertation components in their second. Students will be encouraged to identify potential dissertation topics in their first year of study, but there will not be the same expectation that they are able to devote significant amounts of time to this module during the first year.

The course is designed to prepare students for the kind of challenges and models of practice they would encounter if working professionally in forensic mental health or criminal justice settings, and to equip them with the skills to make best use of evidence in their practice and future research. Students will learn through a combination of formal lectures; reflective practice groups; seminars; supervised placements in forensic mental health services; and completion of a final dissertation which is expected to make a contribution to knowledge in forensic services.

In module one, students will encounter a more traditional academic structure involving formal lectures and group tutorials which will encourage collaborative learning.

In module three, they will encounter work discussion seminars where they will have an opportunity to engage in joint learning, facilitated by an experienced clinician, that will help enhance understanding of material gained during the clinical placements. Seminar groups are expected to contain approximately 12 students; for tutorials and work discussions students will be split into smaller groups of 4-8 students each to enable students to bring clinical material in for discussion.

Students will be provided with reading lists identifying both essential and further reading around the topics discussed, and will be expected to spend a significant amount of time in self-directed study.

• Module 1 - Introduction to Forensic Mental Health (30 credits): will provide students with a grounding framework in forensic mental health, including the interface between mental health and the law; psychopathology linked to violence; risk assessment; pathways through care; and international best practice in management of offenders with mental disorder.
• Module 2a - Applied Research Methods (15 credits) and Module 2b -Evidence, Policy and Health (15 credits, Blizard Institute): These will provide a research and development grounding for students either to evaluate and use best research evidence in forensic practice; or to act as independent researchers in their own right.
• Module 3- Psychosocial Perspectives on Working with Personality Disorder (30 credits): will comprise an intensive grounding in psychosocial approaches to personality disorder (PD), including: nature and aetiology of PD; therapeutic working with PD; expert supervision techniques with PD; and group-facilitated learning sessions with a clinician.
• Module 4: Clinical Placement (30 Credits): This will be a clinical placement undertaken with a forensic (or forensic-related) service within a local NHS trust or other provider. The University will assist in finding placements for students.
• Module 5: Dissertation (60 credits) students will complete a research dissertation during their final term.