Pillars of strength for a community in need

Sinisia Koloto is proud of what she has achieved. Photo / Graeme Sedal

The course

This one-year, full-time course is the baseline qualification for mental health support workers in community mental health agencies.

The programme consists of five courses, including bicultural awareness, discrimination, inclusion and legislation, working with families from diverse cultures and understanding recovery and community networks.

Students are in the classroom one day per week, spending the other four days focused on self-directed learning, tutorials and 335 hours of work experience, paid or unpaid. MIT provides some assistance in obtaining volunteer placements for those students not already working within mental health.

Students are assisted through tutorials, practicum supervision and professional supervision. Assessment methods include a variety of written and practical oral presentations within the classroom and mental health settings. A minimum of 80 per cent attendance at all courses is required.

Up to 30 students are accepted per intake. Students come from all walks of life and ethnicities, ranging in age from late teens to early 60s.

The graduate

Sinisia Koloto
* Mental health support worker in Residential Rehabilitation Services at Pathways Health Ltd
* Graduated in April 2007 and now doing the national diploma

My role involves helping people whose lives are adversely affected by mental illness with their everyday living. As a support worker I support people to make their own sense of their experiences and to learn what they can to do to minimise the adverse effects of these experiences on their everyday living.

We facilitate social connection for the person within their family and community and encourage them to regain or maintain their life journey through education, employment and community activities.

I really like seeing people who experience mental illness make good progress through the choices they make. It is very rewarding to play a part in helping with that progress.

Before I started at Pathways I did various jobs as well as being the main caregiver for both my parents until they passed away. I began at Pathways in a casual role in 2005, also enrolling in the national certificate to develop more of an understanding about mental health. I was lucky to get government financial support without which study would have been a major struggle. My employer was also very encouraging and while doing the certificate I gained a full-time position.

A key focus in the course is the principle of recovery; that we are there to help and facilitate the recovery process. I keep that in my mind and heart; I'm not only there to work for money but to serve the needs of people that are seeking assistance and service to help them recover.

I am now excited about continuing to learn, train and grow through the diploma. Looking back, I am proud and sometimes surprised at what I have achieved in my study.

Working full-time and studying is very hard, but finding a career that fits my skills and beliefs makes a huge difference to me.

The employer

Suzanne Brown
* Service leader for Pathways Health Ltd in Counties Manukau

Pathways is a non-governmental organisation with over 800 staff providing residential and respite services to people who have mental health issues. These services include peer-led services, planned, crisis and acute respite options, residential-based support and mobile support into homes.

A support worker needs innovation, imagination, passion, joy, optimism, integrity and caring. They also need courage because the service user can often be at their lowest when they enter Pathways. The support worker can try new things with them and hold on to hope for them when they have no hope left for themselves.

Support workers, like Sinisia, take a holistic view of service users and work with their whanau, family, environment, spirituality and social supports. This holistic view is emphasised through the course.

They also learn about human development. For example, a man in his 40s may behave like a teenager because it was at that age and stage of life that he experienced the onset of a mental illness.

Historically, support workers were looked upon as simply care givers and the role was not valued, but now service users and their families/whanau, as well as funders and district health boards, all expect support workers to have a certain basic level of knowledge.

The national certificate provides that. Students learn that to be a support worker they are not family, not a friend, but a professional support person and they have to develop that professionalism and understanding of boundaries. We support all staff to do the national certificate.

Now Sinisia has successfully completed her certificate she has started studying towards the diploma. We have four diploma graduates at the moment and I can really see how their knowledge has expanded.

They are able to look at person from a micro and macro perspective and are more aware of current national and global issues and how they impact on mental health.

TRAINING PLACE

Qualification: National Certificate in Mental Health (Mental Health Support Work) (Level 4).
Where: Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) North Campus, Otara.
Contact: Ph 0800 226 262 or (09) 968 8000 (if outside New Zealand); info@manukau.ac.nz; www.manukau.ac.nz.
Application deadlines: February and July. The programme is very popular, so applicants advised to submit applications three months before intake.
Entry requirements: No formal qualifications and students do not have to be employed in the field. Need New Zealand Police consent for disclosure, referral from an employer in the industry or two character references signed by a Justice of the Peace or Kaumatua. All applicants interviewed. Also English language requirements.
2009 course fees: Approx. $4500. Ministry of Health student grants of up to $2000 available. Contact School of Social Science for further information.
Average starting salary: No experience: $25,000 to $28,000 per annum. This is Pathways salary band - other organisations may differ - and is tied into individual professional development plans. Increases to around $45,000 depending on experience, competency assessments, qualifications and performance appraisals.

angela@careerideas.co.nz