You are required to watch/read a consumer story, made available to you in the first lecture. This story requires you to deeply explore a lived experience of a person living life with a mood disorder. After reading and reflecting on that consumer story, please then prepare a 1500-word written report (the inclusion of tables to present your work within the report is acceptable) addressing the following points:

• An introduction that includes narrative paragraphs of your personal reflection on the experiences of this consumer. What is this story telling you about this person’s strengths, their challenges, their participation levels etc ?

• An additional section expressing your understanding of stigma and the recovery process, and how this relates to this consumer. Include information, with referencing, on any relevant occupational injustices.

• Include a reflection on what you know of mood disorders in this early stage of the course and any gaps in knowledge you may have. Include your understanding of evidence-based interventions, and the role of medication

• Identify which occupational therapy assessments and outcome measures may be appropriate - support your choices with evidence from the literature and then prioritise which would be most appropriate for use with this consumer. Perform database searches for the evidence-based literature and review your texts. Place these in the order in which you would utilise them in practice, with supportive statements to explain your rationale. This self-directed research will be some of your first exposure to occupational therapy assessments for psychosocial challenges

• Reflect on your knowledge gaps about mood disorders and develop a learning plan (three to four specific strategies) to help you obtain that knowledge by the end of term

  Word Count

  At this point in your studies, written communication skills are now assessed at the graduate atrribute level of 'intermediate'.  In this assessment, you are expected to adhere to the word limit, comprehensively yet succinctly presenting your ideas.  There will be penalties applied if the word limit is +/- 10% of 1500 words. 
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

Ability to draw upon the literature to identify and and justify the use of appropriate assessment and outcome measures  (10)

Synthesis of evidence-based knowledge with concepts of stigma, recovery and occupational justice (10)

Reflection skills indicative of a deep learning level, exploring lived experience of consumers and taking responsibilty for own future learning (5)

Written communication skills (5)

You will undertake this assessment in groups of 3-4 (depending on enrolled numbers). Groups will deliver a student-led seminar during the tutorial time allocated to this course. The seminars will be 45 minutes, with an additional 15 minutes for discussion and questions/answers, and must not exceed 60 minutes in total. Groups will run these seminars throughout the allocated class times in week 9 of term 1 2018. Topics and groups will be randomly allocated by the unit coordinator and provided in week 1 of term.

The key aim of each seminar is to teach peers about contemporary mental health practice in occupational therapy. The seminar topics have been chosen by the unit coordinator in consultation with industry stakeholders. This should be a dynamic, engaging learning experience for your peers, with a mix of content delivery, and hands-on learning activities. You must complete the following tasks as a group:

1. Perform preliminary research on the allocated seminar topic
2. Complete the Hurdle Assessment Task in week 6 which contains specific requirements for preparation of this seminar
3. Generate a presentation for your student peers which will address those learning objectives
4. The presentation must include substantial, evidence-based content, and interactive activities for students to consolidate learning and reinforce the learning objectives you have developed
5. Each seminar must be of no less than 45 minutes’ duration and must not exceed 60 minutes
6. You must be able to proffer appropriate questions to the class to help you determine if learning outcomes have been met. You must also demonstrate an adequate knowledge of the material to respond to questions from the class group

Self and Peer Assessment (SPA) is part of this assessment. You will complete the online self and peer assessment on the OCCT13007 Moodle site the day prior to your presentation. This enables you to rate your own performance in teamwork and also rate your team members’ performance. The results for this will then be incorporated into the rubric and contribute toward the overall grade. You must complete the SPA in order to be deemed eligible for completion of the assessment piece. It is included within the marking rubric.  

The written component of this task will be generation of learning resources for your peers. These resources will aid the delivery of your subject matter and should be designed so that your peers can keep the resources and refer back to them in the future, should the need arise. These learning resources are in addition to the teaching resources you may utilise throughout your seminar.

The seminar topics are as follows:

1. Sensory approaches in mental health occupational therapy – what is the current state of evidence?

2. Supporting occupational participation for consumers with schizophrenia – a focus on our occupation-focused assessments and interventions

3. Special issues and future directions for the occupational role in older persons’ mental health

4. Evidence-based occupational therapy assessment strategies and interventions for the 12-25 year age group

Please note that marks will be allocated based on group performance. However, there will be exceptions. Those exceptions will be based on the following: 1) if the unit coordinator/ teaching staff note that a student has not contributed during the actual seminar to the same level as peers; and/or 2) the SPA tool reveals problems with a particular group members’ contribution and/or 3) where it is evident that there are considerable discrepancies in the SPA scores within a group. If any or all of those circumstances occur, the unit coordinator will mark relevant students separately from the group.

Contemporary best practice in the assigned seminar topic (15)

Professional design and delivery of content and learning resources to facilitate peer learning (15)

Teamwork (10)

Evidence of group preparation in designing peer learning objectives (5)

This in-class examination is worth a total of 50 marks.  You have a total of 90 minutes to complete the in-class examination, not including the perusal time.   It is a closed book examination, in which the only items permitted are pens, staplers and lined A4 paper.  Laptops and phones must be placed in a secure location within the classroom, and away from the desktop areas, as instructed by the teaching team member on the day.   At the scheduled commencement time, you will have fifteen minutes of perusal time in which you may jot down notes.  There are a total of six short-answer questions.  You are required to answer all parts of all six questions.  Use a numbered/lettered sequence to show which part of your answer refers to which question.  The in-class examination will be supervised on each campus by a member of the teaching team for OCCT13007.

Each question has a marking guide to assess for desired content.   This in-class examination is mapped to learning outcome 1 and learning outcome 4.   Therefore, questions will focus on:

• contemporary evidence-based practice for assessment, goal-setting and intervention
• legislative guidleines, policies, standards and recovery principles that impact on occupational therapy practice in mental health settings