Need an introduction to working with outcome and feedback measures? Our new eLearning module could be for you
My name is Danielle Antha and I’m the CORC Projects and Membership Officer. Responsible for keeping track of every member’s needs and priorities, I’m here to make sure that the support CORC provides is making a difference to the staff and organisations working in children’s mental health.
Over the past year, the feedback we have received from our training programmes highlights the need for an easy to use, quick and interactive introduction to using outcome and feedback measures in practice. As a result, I was tasked with a project to develop an eLearning module, which was commissioned by our partners the Anna Freud Learning Network. ELearning does not replace traditional classroom-based learning altogether. It is becoming a viable alternative for busy organisations and provides some basic but valuable knowledge, whilst remaining cost effective. By developing an eLearning module, CORC is able to deliver its world-class support into services and schools without the need for travel, materials, venues and the difficulty that can come with pulling a member of staff out of a service for a day at a time.
So what did we do?
Knowing the limited resources available to staff working to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and the pressures that arise in providing the best service possible, we decided to design the eLearning with non-specialised mental health staff in mind. It needed to be a taster of the basics of working with outcome and feedback measures, relevant for those who work in this area, those who need to know about them but may not work directly with children and young people. We wanted to provide a training for those without access to specialised NHS training such as voluntary sector staff, data managers, researchers, administrators and those working in schools. We understood the need for it to be practical, immersive (although sadly we’re not at the 4D virtual reality stage quite yet!), simplified but substantial enough to demonstrate how staff can make realistic changes in their practice.
I managed the project and Lee Atkins, CORC Regional Improvement Support Officer, led on developing the content, conferring almost daily with the eLearning development company, Happy. We divided the course into sections, in accordance with what we thought would be the natural course of learning about outcome and feedback measures. To help us produce the most comprehensive introduction we could, we also decided to form a User Consultation Group. This consisted of staff from CORC member services and non-members, and was divided up into our direct audience and non-direct audience groups. The group would comment on iterations of the module, divided into sections. This was to ensure that we were including what people wanted and needed to know, that it avoided jargon – and that it was actually good! We also enlisted the support of young people, who helped us understand what they wanted mental health staff to know about using outcomes.
The result
After much head scratching, discussion and moments of enlightenment, we now have a completed eLearning module. ‘Measuring mental wellbeing to improve the lives of children and young people’ has been developed to cover the fundamentals of outcome and feedback measurement, and is divided into the following sections to help staff navigate the topic:
1. Understanding mental wellbeing
2. Introduction to outcome measures
3. The benefits of measuring mental wellbeing
4. Seven steps to selecting and using measures
5. Best practice using measures
6. Using and interpreting data
Each section involves questions and quizzes to check your learning along the way. ‘Seven steps to selecting and using measures’ is especially meaty, as it demonstrates how you can select and use measures with young people in seven steps by way of a case study. Once you have finished the course, there is a knowledge check and successful completion means you’ll be awarded with a snazzy certificate.
And what’s one of the best ways for it to be cost effective to organisations? For it to be FREE – which it is! Totally! Allow just an hour to take the course and you’ll be an outcomes expert yet.
We hope that ‘Measuring mental wellbeing to improve the lives of children and young people’ will be a beneficial resource to non-statutory service and schools staff, to increase confidence and understanding in the value of using outcomes.
To access the eLearning module please download these instructions and go to elearning.corc.uk.net
To learn more about CORC’s training programme visit our Training & Events pages.
Many thanks to our User Consultation Group, whose insight and enthusiasm really spurred us on!
Adam Barrow, Chesterfield and North Derbyshire NHS Foundation Trust
Anna Pytlowana, Hackney Social Services
Beth Ingram
Caro Fenice, Cobham Hall School
Charlie Jackson, BACP
Claire Pearson, Sheffield Children’s Hospital
Eve Allen, YoungMinds
Hsing-Ping Wang, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust
Jemma White, Place2Be
Jenny Cooke, Kings College London
Kulwant Basi, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust
Lucy Padina, Potential Plus UK
Nicky Martin, YPAS
Nikhil Naag, Place2Be
Sarah Temple, EHCAP
Scott Russell
Tessa Gregson, 42nd Street
Yesha Bhagat, Childhood First