The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative seeks to deliver on the Government's commitment to provide improved access to psychological therapies for people who require the help of mental health services. It also responds to service users' requests for more personalised services based around their individual needs. It aims to develop low intensity practitioners in evidence-based psychological therapy services to work with people with common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. In addition it aims to provide improvements in health, well-being and in maintaining people or returning people to employment and community participation. The course is designed to equip you with the core skills and competencies in order to undertake this role effectively.

This programme will be of interest to graduates or equivalent with some relevant work experience, who are keen to develop a career as a mental health practitioner.

Students on the course will be employed by a Primary Care Trust.

Course modules

Semester 1

• Recognition: engagement and assessment
• Recovery: treatments for common mental disorders

Semester 2

• Respect: values, policy, culture and diversity

Employability and academic progression

This programme has been informed by national policy requirements to establish a new type of practitioner within the mental health workforce in primary care. Low intensity workers will assess and support patients with common mental health problems (principally anxiety and depression) in the self-management of their recovery. Ideally students will be employed as low intensity workers within a Primary Care Trust and will be released to attend one day per week at LSBU for the duration of the course.

LSBU is committed to supporting you develop your employability and succeed in getting a job after you have graduated. Your qualification will certainly help, but in a competitive market you also need to work on your employability, and on your career search. Our Employability Service will support you in developing your skills, finding a job, interview techniques, work experience or an internship, and will help you assess what you need to do to get the job you want at the end of your course. LSBU offers a comprehensive Employability Service, with a range of initiatives to complement your studies, including:

• direct engagement from employers who come in to interview and talk to students
• Job Shop and on-campus recruitment agencies to help your job search
• mentoring and work shadowing schemes.

Professional and industry links

Guest lecturers include:

• Service users, who regularly contribute to the delivery of this programme
• Experts in a range of therapies

This programme replaces the Graduate Workers in Mental Health and Primary Care programme that the Faculty has run for a number of years. The revised course has been developed to meet the requirements for the preparation of IAPT low intensity workers.