Devon Recovery Learning Community

Transcription

1 Devon Recovery Learning Community TUTOR S HANDBOOK Spring/Summer 2016

2 Welcome to the Devon Recovery Learning Community and thank you for your contribution. Our students are people with lived experience of mental health difficulties, their family and friends, and the professionals who support them. This handbook gives you an idea of what you can expect as a tutor of the Recovery Learning Community, and some things we would like to ask you to do. It applies mainly to Devon Partnership Trust and Rethink courses if you are teaching on a course run by Mind, Exeter College, or another of our partners, there may be additional information for you. Fees and payment The payment and employment status of our tutors varies widely according to their background and personal circumstances. If you are a mental health or education professional, you will probably be doing this work as part of your job. If you are coming from a background of personal experience and are not already employed by one of the Learning Community partners, your fees and employment status will be negotiated individually with you. Course plans and session plans The content of your course is up to you to decide along with your co-tutor. Before you start you will be asked to submit a course plan and individual session plans (templates for these documents for Devon Partnership Trust courses are available on the shared drive or from Caroline caroline.nicholson6@nhs.net, or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net).the Recovery Learning Community Steering Group will approve all the courses on the basis of the course plan and may have some suggestions to make, which you can work through together. Quality assurance All our courses will be monitored for quality assurance purposes. This will include monitoring of the course and session plans, review of student and tutor evaluation, and observation of classes by one of the management team. All observations will be arranged and agreed with you in advance. There is also the opportunity for peer observation of courses so that tutors can learn from each other. If you are interested in this, please get in touch. Timescales There will be deadlines for the submission of course content for the prospectus, but in future you will be informed of these well in advance. Materials and consumables We have a small budget for paper, pens, flipchart pads, photocopying, if your own team budget can t cover it.. but please check before you spend anything that we have enough money to fund it. Student support

3 Our courses are self-contained and you are not expected to be available for advice or queries outside the hours of the course. If students have any queries about further courses or would like more information or input on the subject of your course, you are of course free to offer any advice you feel able to give before referring them on the Learning Community at or Risk assessment The course is not a clinical therapy session and clinical risk assessment is not part of the preparation. Your risk assessment should be based on being prepared for anything untoward which may occur in the ordinary running of your class, including physical risk, e.g. use of any equipment, and non-physical risk, such as the risk of distress or discomfort if sensitive topics form part of your course. Numbers on courses You are free to decide minimum and maximum numbers for your course. Venues Until we have full-time administrative back-up, please note that you will be ultimately responsible for the arrangements for your course venues. Please make sure that you have a telephone number to call about your room booking and that you have checked everything you need, including: presentation equipment needed layout of chairs/tables tea/coffee making facilities any special access needs The admin team is available to help as much as they can with room bookings and arrangements. Please call Dan on or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net. Assessment The Recovery Learning Community courses are not formally assessed and do not lead to formal qualifications. However you may wish to introduce some form of assessment and this is up to you and your co-tutor. Please make sure that students are aware in advance of any assessment which they may be required to do, what form it will take, and whether it is optional. Registration For courses run by Mind in Exeter and East Devon, bookings are taken by Teresa Moriarty at the Mind office in Renslade House. For Devon Partnership Trust and Rethink courses, all bookings except the WRAP course in Torquay come through Dan, who is based at New Leaf, Farm House Rise, Exminster or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net. Students are asked to complete a registration form. About a week before your course, Dan will drop you a line with a passworded document letting you know who has booked on your course. Please feel free to ring us at any time to know how your course is booking up. Dan sends a reminder to all students a week before the course, but we still find that around a quarter of students who book on courses do not attend. For this reason we always book an extra two students on all courses. Very occasionally everyone turns up so please be prepared in case this happens.

4 If someone should turn up at your course without booking, you may accept them on the course if you have space. Please ask anyone attending at the last minute to complete a registration form. Attendance Please keep a register of the students attending the course. For all courses, please send the list of students attending to the DRLC at New Leaf or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net. We need this central record to track our student numbers and report on how many people have attended. Record-keeping This is an educational opportunity and not a clinical intervention. There is no requirement to keep a record of students response or contribution to the course and no entry to clinical notes is needed. Confidentiality and information governance Students will expect that their attendance and participation in courses will be kept confidential. When sending any information containing details of students names or personal details, please ensure that it is secure (i.e. within NHSMail, or by post). You will be sent a list of your students and any medical or other information they have shared with us. Please keep this list secure and do not allow students to see it, as it contains confidential information about fellow students. We will keep student details as given on the registration form for future monitoring and reporting. Students are informed of this on the registration form. Certificates of attendance There is a certificate of attendance for when students complete a course, even if it is just a single session. Printed copies of these are available and should be sent to you before your course, or please dpn.tr-drlc@nhs.net. Please complete the certificates with the name of the course and the student. Student behaviour The student handbook makes it clear that we expect certain standards of acceptable behaviour, but these are more flexible than in a formal educational setting. Ideally students will be expected to come to the course on time, to attend all the sessions, and to participate in the activities, but this may present particular challenges to some students. As far as possible we aim to be able to accommodate all levels of attendance and participation, and to make students feel welcome even if they do not feel able to take a full part in the session. All students, however, will be expected to behave with respect towards fellow students and tutors. Disruptive or aggressive behaviour is not acceptable and you should feel free to exclude any student who is disturbing the work of others, or whose behaviour is threatening or abusive. Complaints If a student has a complaint to make which can t be resolved on the spot, please refer them to us on , or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net.

5 Student wellbeing and emergencies This is not a clinical environment and you do not have a clinical responsibility for a student s wellbeing. If a student becomes unwell or distressed, please just do your best to help them with whatever they need to stay in class, to go home or to get in touch with someone. There is more detailed guidance about this in the Appendix at the end of the handbook. If you have immediate safety concerns or the person is very unwell, do not hesitate to call the emergency services on 999. If you have any incident or emergency during a course, or if you are concerned about a student s wellbeing in general, and feel you need to pass on your concern, please let us know on , or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net. If your course is out of hours, three members of our steering group are available on their mobiles after courses so that you can consult them immediately if you need to: - Caroline Nicholson Russ Drayton Evaluation It is very important that we collect student feedback on all our courses, so as to be able to make improvements, and to evidence the success of the Learning Community. Please make sure that you leave a few minutes at the end of a course for students to complete evaluation forms. You are also asked to give a brief report of your own experience of the course and anything you would like to change for future offerings. You will be sent student and tutor evaluation forms before your course and they are also available on the shared drive. When complete please return your evaluation feedback to: DRLC New Leaf Farm House Rise Exminster EX6 8AB Student fees and expenses The courses are provided free of charge to students who have experience of using mental health services, their family and friends, and the mental health professionals who support them. Unfortunately we are not able to meet any expenses students may incur to attend, such as travel or childcare. Cancelling a course Once the course is advertised in the prospectus, we consider that we have an obligation to students to offer it. If for any reason you are not able to continue to teach it, please let us know as soon as possible. We will be grateful for any suggestions about someone who can take your place but it is not your responsibility to find an alternative tutor. If you are not able to attend on the day of a course, for example because of illness, you must let your co-tutor and Dan know as soon possible , or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net

6 Of course this is not a clinical setting but even so please think carefully if you might be at risk of passing on any illness to our students in particular DPT policy is that staff should not attend work if they have had any symptoms of stomach upset within the previous 48 hours. Staff meetings We aim to hold staff meetings regularly, so that you can exchange views and experiences with fellow tutors. There is also an distribution list which you are encouraged to use for peer support and information. Website The Recovery Learning Community now has its own website at Students can book online and it also contains news and details of all course. Staff pages coming soon. Problems and queries If there is a problem of any sort with your course, or you need further information or advice, please contact the Devon Recovery Learning Community Steering Group on or dpn-tr.drlc@nhs.net

7 Appendix 1: Devon Recovery Learning Community: Guidance for tutors Student wellbeing During a course you may feel concerned for the wellbeing of a student. For example, they may disclose profoundly distressed feelings, or even mention suicidal ideas or thoughts of harming other people. What should you, as the tutor, do in this type of circumstance? 1. Remember that you do not carry responsibility for your students on your own. Your cotutor is there to consult and the DRLC management and steering group are also sharing responsibility for the welfare of all our students. 2. Don t do nothing. Share your concern with your co-tutor first and make sure that you let the DRLC management (Sarah Joy Boldison, Russ Drayton or Judith Belam) know as soon as you can. 3. If you feel that immediate action is needed, talk to the student themselves first if you can. Explain that you are worried about them and would like to make sure that they are safe and have somewhere to turn. Make sure that you do this after the course or in a break so that you can speak in private and not in front of others. If the disclosure is made openly in front of other students, you may need to say to the student that you would like to talk to them outside of class about the issue. 4. If you are still concerned, tell the student, and ask if you may pass on the information to someone else, for example their emergency contact or one of their care team. The student themselves may suggest the best person to talk to. 5. The DRLC is about learning, not therapy, and your role as a tutor is best limited to helping the person to find the right sources of help. 6. In very rare circumstances tutors will have a duty to take action without permission from the students. This only applies when you have weighed up all available information and discussed your concern with your co-tutor and sought to raise the issue with the person concerned. Only if you continue to believe there to be a risk of serious and imminent harm, whether to the person themselves or specific other people, can you contact the person s care team or emergency services without their permission to seek urgent assistance. The DRLC is not a clinical service and we do not have access to peoples clinical records. 7. If you feel that there is an immediate risk for example, you believe that the student is at risk of a suicide attempt, do not hesitate to call an ambulance on 999; if there is a risk of violence or harm to other people, call the police on 999.

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