Flinders Medical Centre Rural and Remote Mental Health Services |
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Division of Mental Health |
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Project Coordinator
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Project Description The Flinders Medical Centre: Division of Mental Health is the largest mental health clinical service in South Australia. It incorporates into its administrative and clinical structures the Southern Mental Health Service, Southern Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, the Noarlunga Health Service, Rural and Remote Mental Health Services as well as those offered discretely from the Flinders medical centre itself. The Division was established in July 1999 and quickly sought to emphasize the value it placed on its staff as well as tacit acknowledgement for adequate staff development and support by establishing a sub unit with this role as its primary intent. The Division wishes to be functioning at the forefront of all education not only in terms of content but also in terms of the modes by which it is delivered to the staff. This is of particular importance given many staff are located in isolated and distance locations in the Australian Outback. One delivery modality more commonly used toward the end of the last decade was that of web based programs. These were either in the form of interactive and non-interactive web pages. However, the majority of people now have access to the net and to VR universes/worlds, this includes staff and clients of the division (regardless of their mental state - cyber world does not discriminate in this sense). In addition, all western worlds at least have an emphasis now on 1. Long term care of mentally ill 2. Mental health education and promotion In planning to address each of these elements in a staff development program for a diverse range of health professionals located in diverse settings and with diverse needs it was perceived as useful to investigate as many program delivery modalities as was practically possible. Of course, the fundamental question related to the use of a virtual world is why, what is its value in staff development? It is a place where people will be able to go interact with each other in real time, talk with professional staff in order to gain therapeutic assistance, advice, information, and or education. As it is a Virtually Real world, it is also available to researchers from other countries. The location in Cyberspace will enable us to develop international speaker for program participants and online conferences. The location in Cyberspace enables a number of elements associated with ethical legal issues to be fully explicated and explored within the context of international understandings. This is becoming increasingly important in the field of mental health, education, research and industry/business. Goals of FMCHMHSD * Provide the context for research focused on developing clear processes and outcomes for online counseling, education, and support. * Providing information relevant to understanding and optimizing personal mental health. * establishing and implementing therapeutic processes relevant to a range of relationship and other common mental health problems. * offer virtual environments in which understandings and skills developed by individuals can be developed with coaching and testing. | ||
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