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Why a curriculum in psychosocial rehabilitation?

Public mental health systems are severely stressed by:

• their inability to fill vacant positions at all levels

• their inability to hire staff that reflect the diversity of people using services

• a shortage of staff that are trained in psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery-oriented practice.

In 1998, CASRA initiated a curriculum development project to address this problem. Assistance was provided by behavioral/mental health departments of four Counties, and with an Allied and Auxiliary Health Care Workforce project grant from the University of California at San Francisco.The Psychosocial Rehabilitation Curriculum is a distillation of the wisdom and experience of many consumers, professionals and family members. The result is a course of study designed to prepare front-line staff to provide recovery-oriented services. The curriculum was developed through a process called DACUM, in which experienced line staff (including consumer staff) formulated a list of the tasks that comprised PSR work. The curriculum translates this information into five core courses covering the basic skills and knowledge needed by an entry-level psychosocial rehabilitation practitioner. The curriculum is designed to provide the basis for a certificate in PSR at the community-college-level. It can also be used as the basis for staff development and training.

5 Core Courses (links lead to samples of the Curriculum in Adobe Acrobat PDF documents):

• Introduction to Psychosocial Rehabilitation

• The Helping Relationship

• Rehabilitation and Recovery

• Community Integration

• Fieldwork seminar in PSR

Course components:

• Basic Class Description

• Learning Objectives

• Index of Activities

• Lecture Outline

• Exercises

• Homework

• Resource Book

For more information on our curriculum or related training course please contact CASRA.