Developing Resources:
involving mental health
service users and carers
Tarsem Singh Cooner
Associate Director
Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health
The University of Birmingham
Overview

Learners – target audience

E-learning development drivers

Design and development

Drivers and barriers for re-use
Learners – target audience

Target audience pre and post qualified:
Psychologists, Social Workers, Nurses, GPs,
Psychiatrists, Neuroscientists, Teachers, Public
Policy Planners, Mental Health Service User/Carer
Trainers, Youth Workers etc...

Aim to promote interdisciplinary mental health
practice between related disciplines.
E-learning Development Drivers

Overcome traditional barriers to interdisciplinary
teaching and learning of time and space

Promoting deeper learning outcomes through the
processes of enquiry-based learning

Provide Mental Health Service Users and Carers
with an equal voice in training professionals

Developing collaborative learning opportunities
between disciplines
Design and Development
Process

High End Developments – facilities
Reusable Learning
Object Specification V2.3
Team effort to
produce RLO
Design and Development
Process - Community

Low Tech – High Quality - Granularity

The Centre’s definition of the term 'interdisciplinary' is one
which equally values service user and carer expertise
alongside that of mental health professionals.

Learning from the experiences of service users and carers
to promote good practice

Involve service users and carers in the curriculum
development process
Design and Development
Process - Community

Requirements:
laptop, microphone, free software, training
Design and Development
Process - Community

Requirements:
laptop, microphone, free software, training

Preparation – project funding, service user/carer
involvement, focus, time limit, originality,
triggering event, stimulus, reuse.

Impact of Medication: Click here to access Web
based example
How could this example trigger debate within
your interdisciplinary learning group?
Drivers, Barriers for Reuse

Technical – lack of Web 2.0 type functionality

Permissions from service users and carers

Lack of learning design framework creates barrier
to reuse.

Driver for reuse is the development and adoption
of a learning design framework
Designing for Enquiry-based Blended Learning
Framework
Category
Indicators (examples only)
RLO as triggering event
Create a sense of puzzlement, stimulus for inquiry, raise
problems/issues, initiate questions around beliefs, stereotypes,
opinions etc...
Design and organisation
Clear learning aims and objectives, enquiry-based learning
tasks set around trigger, appropriate assessments and
summative and formative assessment processes
How can you create a climate for learning that encourages:
Open communication
and exploration
Students feel comfortable and confident in exchanging
information
How can you enable students to achieve:
Integration
Students are enabled to begin connecting the ideas introduced
Resolution
Access to situations in which students can apply new ideas
Based on Garrison and Vaughan’s (2008) Community of Inquiry framework
Garrison and Vaughan (2008) Blended learning in Higher education: frameworks,
principles and guidelines. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Further Information
www.ceimh.bham.ac.uk/downloads/ListofResources.shtml

Tarsem Singh Cooner
 t.s.cooner@bham.ac.uk