SASW Community of Practice: Mental Health Officer - 21st November 2024

The next dedicated Community of Practice (CoP) for Mental Health Officers (MHOs) in Scotland will explore research on Adult Support and Protection and provide opportunity for discussion and reflection on your engagement with the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2008 as an MHO/trainee MHO. It will be facilitated by Dr Pearse McCusker, Senior Lecturer in Social work/Director of the MHO Award, University of Edinburgh, and Vicky Soutar, Lecturer in Social Work, Stirling University. The session will start with a presentation on a recent journal article which reviews key research into the use and effectiveness of the ASP Act: Mackay, K. and McCusker, P. (2024) Adult safeguarding legislation: Navigating the borderlands between mental capacity, mental health and social care law and practice. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 94,101964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2024.101964 This will be followed by small and large group discussions focusing on your experiences of using the ASP Act, including the benefits and challenges and the interface with the MH and AWI Acts. The aim of the session is to share knowledge on what’s ‘known’ about the ASP Act, explore its role in upholding human rights and consider how MHOs relate to and implement it.

These CoPs are designed to be dedicated reflective places for practicing MHOs across Scotland to network with peers and engage in reflective discussion on prearranged topics to support professional learning and development. There will be a CoP for MHOs planned on a quarterly basis and each CoP will have a dedicated theme. The CoPs will attract 3 hours CPD. Please book below and come and join us. You will receive an agenda and some reading prior to the session, which will be used to inform the discussion. The session will take place on MS Teams.

The SASW MHO CoPs are now FREE for ALL MHOs and trainee MHOs to attend. So please come along!