By: Julie Van Hartingsveldt, External Relations Specialist, Communications and Public Affairs , Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences
Three out of every ten Ontarians aged 18 and up are affected by mental health issues, according to data from a poll performed earlier this year by IPSOS on behalf of Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores). To put this in perspective, that is 4.5 million individuals or 30% of Ontario's population. The pandemic has resulted in an increase in the number of individuals requiring mental health services. This has put additional strain on an already overloaded system, as the impact of mental illness and addiction is greater than that of other medical conditions such as cancer and infectious diseases (Ratnasingham et al., 2012).
The demand for mental health professionals, including nurses and other healthcare workers, is higher than it has ever been. Given that nurses spend the most time caring for patients (Canadian Nurses Association, 2015), it is essential to acknowledge that many nurses believe they lack the skills and knowledge they need to provide high-quality care to patients who have issues related to their mental health or addiction (Garrod et al., 2020). This is an unfortunate outcome of the limited formal education that they obtain in the field of mental health in higher education (Chicoine et al., 2020).
Ontario Shores has teamed up with Ontario Tech University's workforce planning and development subsidiary, TALENT, to further educate and prepare Canada's nursing workforce to provide patients with mental health care based on the most up-to-date scientific evidence. As a result, a number of microcredential courses for nurses and other healthcare professionals targeted at rapid-cycle training to fill knowledge gaps in the field have been developed.
Microcredentials are short-term courses of study provided by universities and colleges to help students quickly acquire marketable skills. They are shorter than conventional degrees or diplomas, can be obtained on your own time (online or on the job), and are frequently developed with input from business sectors to ensure that the skills taught are in line with employer requirements. Professional practice leads, frontline clinicians, and scientists from Ontario Shores are working together with TALENT's learning design experts to create, launch, and assess a collection of courses based on evidence-based practices and real-world experience for these microcredentials.
The most exciting aspect of these mental health microcredentials is their ability to distinguish themselves by demonstrating competency-based learning that is created and assessed as part of the educational process, as well as their adaptability to develop future courses as identified in in-need assessments, such as therapeutic communication, trauma-informed care, recovery-oriented care, mental health pharmacology, and the management of clients with comorbid illnesses.
Aimed at both new and experienced RNs and other healthcare professionals who want to expand their mental health expertise and build a well-respected toolkit of skills, each course runs six weeks and is available across Canada.
Microcredential topics were identified through a Canada-wide survey of nurses and nurse leaders.
The extant microcredentials that are presently accessible are:
- Ethics and Mental Health
- Foundations in Mental Health
- Mental Health Pharmacology
- Mental Status Assessment
- Recovery
- Therapeutic Communications, Relationships & Boundaries
- Trauma Informed Care
Five microcredentials are currently being developed, and 15 more are planned to launch in 2023–2024:
- Adolescents
- Crisis Intervention & De-escalation
- Cultural Competencies
- Delirium, Dementia, Depression and Mental Health in Older Adults
- Mental Health Law
Mental health or other health care professionals can contribute to this exciting work by becoming learners, Subject Matter Expert (SMEs) who develop new microcredentials, and/or Skills Coach who facilitate microcredentials.
To learn more about these microcredentials or the partnership, please contact:
Dawne Barbieri
Vice President, Clinical Services and Research
Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences
rachel@ontariotechtalent.ca
Rachel Sumner
Chief Executive Officer
TALENT™
barbierid@ontarioshores.ca
Sources:
Garrod, E., Jenkins, E., Currie, L. M., McGuinness, L., & Bonnie, K. (2020, April 22). Leveraging Nurses to Improve Care for Patients with Concurrent Disorders in Inpatient Mental Health Settings: A Scoping Review. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 16(3), 357–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/15504263.2020.1752963
Richardson, K., Sander, B., Guo, H., Greer, A., & Heffernan, J. (2014). Tuberculosis in Canada: Detection, Intervention and Compliance. AIMS Public Health, 1(4), 241–255. https://doi.org/10.3934/publichealth.2014.4.241
Garrod, E., Jenkins, E., Currie, L. M., McGuinness, L., & Bonnie, K. (2020, April 22). Leveraging Nurses to Improve Care for Patients with Concurrent Disorders in Inpatient Mental Health Settings: A Scoping Review. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 16(3), 357–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/15504263.2020.1752963
Chicoine, G., Côté, J., Pepin, J., Pluye, P., Boyer, L., Fontaine, G., Rouleau, G., Dubreucq, S., & Jutras-Aswad, D. (2021, March). Impact of a videoconferencing educational programme for the management of concurrent disorders on nurses' competency development and clinical practice: protocol for a convergent mixed methods study. BMJ Open, 11(3), e042875. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042875
Feeling Anxious? You're Not Alone. (2022, October 3). Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences. https://www.ontarioshores.ca/feeling-anxious-youre-not-alone
RN Practice Framework - Canadian Nurses Association. (n.d.). RN Practice Framework - Canadian Nurses Association. https://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/nursing/regulated-nursing-in-canada/rn-practice-framework2
Pinderup, P. (2018). Challenges in working with patients with dual diagnosis. Advances in Dual Diagnosis, 11(2), 60-75.