What is Trailblazers all about?
It is about energizing, enabling and enhancing people who want to make a difference in primary care mental health services.
It is a course of meetings which use innovative learning techniques to grow services for patients, and grow individuals professionally and personally.
Started in 1996, Trailblazers courses were developed under the leadership of Professor André Tylee. There are now Trailblazers courses in many regions of the country, as well as an international course. Their success has been measured by the number of graduates now involved in primary mental health education and as mental health leads. The ‘rock’ of this programme has been its expert tutorship of Dr Jonas Miller, who is joined by Psychologist, Dr Amanda Gatherer, & GP, Anand Chitnis to co-tutor. Amanda is West Midlands Regional Advisor for IAPT and Anand is also the trailblazers programme lead and coordinator.
Course evaluations have shown the essential ingredients have been:
• Multi-disciplinary learning
• Joint primary/secondary training
• Assessment of personal learning needs and personal development
• Relevance to local needs
• Modelling of good practice
• Skill teaching and sharing within an adult, learner-centred programme
This programme is unique in bringing together pairs of colleagues, usually one from primary care and one from mental health services, to jointly define and meet their local training needs.
The course is designed with the ultimate aim of improving the care of patients with mental health problems. We aim to enhance your motivation to want to make the changes necessary to achieve this; to provide a context in which you can improve your capabilities in this role; and to enable you to think systemically about the systems that constrain or provide opportunities to improve care.
The outcomes of the course are deliberately not framed as superficial objectives but reflect learning at a different and deeper level, providing a context in which you can engage in identifying and achieving learning objectives of your own design.
The course will provide a context in which you will be able to:
• Review your current practice and role in mental health care.
• Identify your own learning needs with respect to your role.
• Construct achievable outcomes related to the needs.
• Generate a variety of strategies to achieve the outcomes.
• Identify ways in which you can determine your success in achieving the outcomes.
• Create innovative ways of working inter-professionally.
These basic educating skills may be applied in different contexts of your choice reflecting your work with patients, your role as teacher of others providing care, or your role as leader and/or manager of others. This may be related to skills at a micro level dealing directly with patients or learners, or at macro level working at an organisational level.
The 2010 Course is now closed to applications - watch this website for future courses.
A more detailed description of the 2010 programme:
The 2010 course focusses on the development and implementation of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Programme in the West Midlands.
WHEN? Three modules of 36 hours, starting at 9.30am on the first day and finishing after lunch on the second day. The dates for Trailblazers 2009 are as follows:-
1st module - Thursday/Friday 13-14 May 10
2nd module - Thursday/Friday 15-16 July 10
3rd module - Thursday/Friday 16-17 September 10
WHERE? All residential modules for Trailblazers 2010 will take place at The Izaak Walton Hotel, Dovedale on the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border, near Ashbourne, nestling between the Rivers Dove and Manifold.
WHAT? Using the “Teach the Teachers” model, you will receive learning that you can subsequently cascade to your local colleagues.
The focus is on you as a pair and what you want to achieve. The project is a vehicle for the learning and helps you put into practice the ideas you gain from the course.
The West Midlands RDC/NIMHE Primary Care Mental Health Network will provide support and opportunities to share the benefits of this programme.
HOW? Dr Jonas Miller, Dr Amanda Gatherer and Dr Anand Chitnis will provide the programme of learning over three residential modules (1½ days). Project work will involve the cascade of this learning as an ongoing activity through the year.
WHY? To provide benefit to patients: the programme will encourage the integration of care to help patients and families within the community. The programme will increase the training capacity in primary mental health care. The programme is acknowledged as “good practice” for continuous personal and professional development and for NHS appraisals at both individual and organisational levels.
WHO? You need to apply as part of a learning pair from different professional disciplines; each pair should contain a primary care/community based professional. There is some flexibility on this so contact Anand Chitnis if you are unsure.
HOW MUCH? The full programme, including accommodation, refreshments and meals, tutor support and materials, has been supported by WMRDC.
We are able to offer the course free of charge to successful applicants. Places are limited. Please contact us as soon as possible. (There is approximately a £40 charge per person per module payable to the hotel to cover the 4 meals as part of the negotiated rate, and includes 2 lunches, breakfast and dinner in the hotel’s acclaimed restaurant.)