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Master of Youth Mental Health (MC-YOUTHMH) // Attributes, outcomes and skills

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Intended learning outcomes

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:



  • Outline and discuss the major theories of youth development and mental health
  • Describe and apply tailored approaches to engaging and assessing young people experiencing mental ill-health
  • Identify and assess the early signs of a range of serious mental illnesses in young people
  • Identify and differentiate key features of the various types of mental ill-health in young people
  • Identify and discuss the biological, psychological and social risk factors that underlie mental ill-health in young people
  • Identify and discuss the biological, psychological and social protective factors that contribute to young people’s resilience and promote recovery from mental ill-health
  • Identify and describe the range of best-practice psychosocial and biological interventions for different types of mental ill-health in young people
  • Identify and discuss recent advances in the prevention and early intervention of mental ill-health in young people
  • Design and critically evaluate prevention and early intervention approaches to youth mental health
  • Describe optimal biological and psychosocial interventions that are applicable to the various stages of serious mental illness and sensitive to the developmental tasks facing young people
  • Prepare treatment plans applicable to the different stages of mental illness that are sensitive to the developmental tasks facing young clients of mental health services
  • Match optimal approaches to the treatment of young people to impatient, community-based and home-based contexts
  • Describe and design organisational and management approaches that optimise youth mental health service delivery across a range of settings
  • Apply critically reflective, evidence-based approaches to youth mental health practice
  • Interpret, design and implement practice-based research methods
  • Discuss and apply advanced practice skills in a therapeutic context
  • Critically analyse scientific research papers

Generic skills

The Master of Youth Mental Health should enhance students’:

  • Capacity to translate knowledge into practice
  • Critical and analytical thinking skills
  • Problem solving skills
  • Oral and written communication skills
  • Capacity for logical and independent thought
  • Information management skills
  • Time management skills
  • Ability to find, evaluate and use relevant information
  • Skills in information technology
  • Ethical awareness and practice

Graduate attributes

Knowledge

Graduates of the Master of Youth Mental Health will have acquired:

  • A body of knowledge that includes the understanding of the foundational principles, key content areas and recent developments in the discipline of youth mental health
  • Knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work in youth mental health

Skills

Graduates of the Master of Youth Mental Health will have developed:

  • Cognitive skills to demonstrate mastery of theoretical knowledge and to reflect critically on theory and professional practice or scholarship
  • Cognitive, technical and creative skills to investigate, analyse and synthesise complex information, problems, concepts, and theories and to apply established theories to different bodies of knowledge or practice
  • Cognitive, technical and creative skills to generate and evaluate complex ideas and concepts at an abstract level
  • Communication and technical research skills to justify and interpret theoretical propositions, methodologies, conclusions and professional decisions to specialist and non-specialist audiences
  • Technical and communication skills to design, evaluate, implement, analyse, theorise about developments that contribute to professional practice or scholarship


Application of knowledge and skills

Graduates of the Master of Youth Mental Health will demonstrate the application of knowledge and skills:

  • With creativity and initiative to new situations in professional practice and/or for further learning
  • With high level personal autonomy and accountability
  • To plan and execute a substantial capstone experience or research project

Last updated: 10 November 2023