MSc Mental Health and Wellbeing

Start date: This course starts September 2012

Course length: Two years of full time study or three years part time

Campus: Kedleston Road site, Derby Campus

This course is available to international students

If you are a practitioner wanting to develop expertise in improving the mental health and wellbeing of the people you work with, this course is for you. This visionary course will focus on the future of mental health and wellbeing through advancing practice and developing high quality health and social compassionate care. Mental health and wellbeing has been a focus for research and development over the last ten years and has been shown to improve the quality of people's lives, relationships and communities.

During this course you'll consider how the future of mental health can be enhanced through innovation. The focus on positive mental health practice and enhancing the service provided will develop your leadership skills to have a major effect on the creation of cultures for innovation, organisations and systems. You'll also focus on public mental health promotion and prevention and the social factors affecting wellbeing.

Throughout the course you'll develop your leadership skills by enhancing your knowledge in service improvement and innovation, enabling you to lead on developments within your organisation. Also, by completing the research aspect of this course, your practice will be informed and shaped through critical reflection and interpretation of research findings in your specialist field of practice.

Analysis of evidenced based interventions to enhance wellbeing in your own working context will be developed, and you'll also be taught by highly committed and experienced lecturers.

This course is subject to approval

This course has just been created and we intend to start running it on the next start date. With every new course that we develop, we first have it checked by internal and external quality panels to make sure you get the best possible learning experience. Once these checks have been completed, this course will have been approved and the flag will disappear. There may be small changes to content of the course during this process so check back for updates to this page.

What you’ll study
You will study the following modules:

• Public Mental Health (20 credits)
• Psychological Wellbeing (20 credits)
• Innovation and Transformational Leadership in Mental Health Services (20 credits)
• Principles of Service Improvement (20 credits)
• Research Methodologies – Application to Advanced Practice (20 credits)
• Independent Scholarship (60 credits)
• Work Based Learning – Negotiated Module (20 credits)
• Developing Positive Approaches for an Increasing Ageing Population (20 credits)

You'll usually need an undergraduate degree (at least second class) or an equivalent qualification in a nursing, health or social science subject.

How you'll learn

You will be learning and working using a transformational approach, developing new ways of working differently to change the relationships we have with people and communities. Your focus will be on learning from the people you work with in your workplace as well as from drawing on the body of research in mental health and wellbeing.

Face to face learning in university will include seminars, keynote lectures, problem based learning, action learning sets and experiential practical sessions. You will also learn via online distance learning materials and social networking technologies.

How you're assessed

The emphasis of this programme is for you to produce assessed work that will be topical, innovative and current to reflect your working practices.

Assessments have been designed to be flexible and innovative, facilitating inter-professional learning and allowing you to produce work relevant to your own workplace.

Assessment throughout the programme is through 100% coursework including written reflections, a case study, a strategic plan, written reports, poster presentations or production of a learning package, a portfolio, an assignment, a dissertation or the development of products/materials for a regional exhibition.

The course will enhance employability and advancement through developing leaders who will have a major effect on the creation of cultures for innovation in mental health and wellbeing. Improvement leaders have a responsibility to support improvement activity as well as the operational priorities and strategic goals of the system. The course will equip you with the knowledge, skills and resilience to lead on transformational change within all mental health and social care organisations.

"I am really pleased that I chose the University of Derby. It's not only friendly, but the staff are all very supportive. I would recommend anyone wanting to undertake a course to consider coming here."

Ruth Harrison, current student