Social Workers Adult Mental Health (SWAMH)

2010 / 11       Chairperson: Damien Nolan           

Secretary:       Anne Duffin  

The Committee:

• As planned, the committee of SWAMH met on 6 occasions. Between those meetings, some members of the committee met separately to work on particular tasks for SWAMH.
• In the summer of 2010 two members of the committee, together with the President of IASW, had a planned meeting with the National Assistant Director of Mental Health Services to share the view of SWAMH regarding particular issues of importance including: the necessary availability of social work supervision towards ensuring the capacity of our discipline to operate to the highest professional standard in the field of adult mental health, and the consequent need to have a line management structure in place in each mental health social work service that will be resourced to be able to provide such supervision; the particular issues commonly dealt with by multidisciplinary mental health care teams that SWAMH would consider that social work can and should take the lead role in processing; the significance of the Team Co-ordinator role within the Community Mental Health Team (as proposed in ‘A Vision for Change’), and the importance of having this role available to be performed by suitably qualified and experienced social workers as well as members of other disciplines.
• In November 2010 SWAMH submitted a report on behalf of IASW to the Independent Monitoring Group for ‘A Vision for Change’ on its assessment of progress in the implementation of this mental health policy.
• In the past 12 months a member of the SWAMH committee, acting as a representative of IASW, has become a member of the National ‘Vision for Change’ Working Group; and another mental health social worker connected to SWAMH has become the IASW representative of the National ‘Mental Health Recovery’ Working Group.
• Within the past year the SWAMH committee has also assisted a representative of the Mental Health Commission to conduct a survey evaluating the impact of regulatory standards on mental health services in Ireland.
• Also within the past year, Frank Browne of the SWAMH committee, together with Professor Wes Shera (of the faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, Canada), contributed an article to the Irish Social Worker journal titled ‘Mental Health Reform in Ireland: Social Workers’ Perceptions of Progress.’

 Continuous Professional Development Programmes:

• SWAMH provided a CPD day programme on November 26^th 2010 in St Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin 8, which had as its theme the subject of ‘Working effectively with Carers’ and at which three sets of speakers presented. Nora Mannion (Principal Social Worker) and Mary Kelleher (Senior Social Worker), both of the ‘Cluain Mhuire’ Mental Health Service in Co Dublin, presentation was on working effectively with the carers of service users with Borderline Personality Disorder. Patrick Egan (Principal Social Worker) and Kevin Madigan (Clinical Research Fellow), both of DETECT, an early psychosis intervention team operating in Co Dublin, spoke on the subject of effective intervention with carers of those experiencing psychosis for the first time; and  Pauline Gill (Principal Social Worker) and Donal O’Malley (Senior Social Worker), both of the Central Mental Hospital, delivered a presentation on the subject of ‘working with carers who are victims’ and on the subject of ‘assessment tools for use in assessing carer needs.’
• SWAMH provided a CPD day programme on the same date as its AGM, March 25^th 2011, this event also took place in St Patrick’s University Hospital. There were two CPD presentations: Bernadette Casey and Kristen Murphy (HSE Senior Social Workers practising in the field of Protection of Older Persons) gave a presentation entitled ‘What is Elder Abuse? How to Respond?’ and then Bridget Harney (Senior Occupational Therapist with PROTECT, an early intervention service for persons with psychosis based in Co Wicklow) gave a presentation entitled ‘The Mental Health Recovery Star – Measuring, Mapping and Supporting the Recovery Process.’