CLIMATE MH e-learning
CLIMATE (Clinical Management and Treatment Education) MH (mental health) is an interactive e-learning professional development programme. It has been developed for clinicians working in district health boards (DHBs) and non-government organisations (NGOs).
Currently, mental health and addiction training is variable, sporadic and expensive. CLIMATE MH is an e-learning programme that will enable mental health and addiction clinicians to work through modules on basic psychiatry in their workplace and then apply the modules to clinical areas.
Often mental health clinicians are entering the workforce under-prepared in clinical knowledge and skill. CLIMATE MH offers self-paced learning, complemented by face-to-face learning with workplace supervisors.
On this page
About the project
The Ministry of Health leads this project with Te Pou's support. CLIMATE MH was developed by Professor Gavin Andrews, from the Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depressions (CRUFAD), St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney. CRUFAD have successfully developed and implemented a number of other CLIMATE e-learning programmes including:
- CLIMATE GP - http://www.climategp.tv
- CLIMATE Schools - http://www.climateschools.tv.
CLIMATE MH, like CLIMATE GP and CLIMATE Schools has been developed from reputable material. The mental health module is based on The World Health Organisation text, Management of Major Mental Disorders.
The Ministry saw the advantages of web-based education and its ability to integrate smoothly with the development of the Let's get real (2008) framework. Let's get real aims to ensure more workers in mental health and addiction services have the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes required to deliver quality mental health and addiction services.
In February 2007, a small group of New Zealand experts met with Professor Andrews and the team at St Vincent's Hospital to determine the priorities for the first set of lessons for CLIMATE MH. The first lessons, on schizophrenia, have now been developed. These lessons are based on the CLIMATE MH framework written by St Vincent's Hospital and Australian experts.
What's happening now?
Te Pou reviewed the CLIMATE MH project in November 2009. The review team included members of the Te Pou workforce team and the consumer project leader for Matua Raki.
The review involved analysing a sample of the lesson plans across a selection of the CLIMATE MH learning modules. This process would inform the content relevance to the New Zealand mental health and addiction environment, functionality of MOODLE (information management support system for e-learning) and the overall quality of CLIMATE MH as an e-learning product.
Following the review, we have decided to temporarily delay the roll out of CLIMATE MH. We will work with the Ministry of Health to consider the future development of this project.
Future updates will be made available on this web page.
Further information
For more information, contact David Bradley, project lead NGO workforce development.
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Page last updated: 4 March 2010