Unit rationale, description and aim
Person-led mental health practice is grounded in partnership with people with lived experience, guided by the person’s values, strengths, hopes and goals. This unit supports students to develop the foundational knowledge and capabilities needed to contribute to person‑led practice with confidence, respect and humility. This unit introduces students to the Australian mental health system and the roles of multidisciplinary and peer workforces. Students develop an integrated understanding of mental distress that centres lived-experience perspectives and integrates recovery and trauma‑informed principles with strengths-based, biopsychosocial, cultural, social determinants and lifespan lenses, alongside critical consideration of stigma, discrimination and structural inequity. Building on this foundation, students develop core practice capabilities in collaborative engagement, holistic assessment and formulation, understanding common mental health conditions across the lifespan, and coordinating care across services and supports. These capabilities are situated within shared decision-making, therapeutic communication, and inclusive partnering with individuals, families, carers and community supports, alongside key ethical, legal and professional responsibilities.
The overarching aim of this unit is to prepare students to genuinely partner with people with lived experience to deliver person‑led and evidence‑informed foundational mental health practice.
Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Analyse person led, rights based and lived experie...
Learning Outcome 01
Apply professional reasoning to knowledge of how m...
Learning Outcome 02
Develop foundational person led practice capabilit...
Learning Outcome 03
Evaluate common mental health conditions and prese...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
Orientation to person-led mental health practice
- Person-led, rights-based and lived experience–informed practice
- Australian mental health system and service contexts
- Navigation and referral pathways
- Roles, scopes of practice, and the multidisciplinary team
- Working collaboratively
Foundational frameworks for understanding mental distress
- Consumer perspective
- Recovery
- Trauma-informed
- Strength-based
- Biopsychosocial
- Social determinants
- Developmental/lifespan
- Cultural
- Vulnerability–stress–coping model
- Stigma, discrimination, prejudice and oppression and the impacts on help-seeking
Mental health conditions in the context of the lifespan
- Common conditions and presentations across perinatal, childhood, youth, adulthood and older adulthood
- Anxiety conditions
- Affective conditions
- Psychosis, schizophrenia and related conditions
- Substance-related conditions
- Personality-related conditions
- Eating-related conditions
- Neurocognitive conditions
Essential assessment skills
- Engagement, information gathering, and collaborative assessment
- Strengths-based assessment
- Mental state examination
- Risk and safety assessment
- Screening and outcome measures
- Diagnostic systems and language (DSM/ICD)
- Formulation
Case management and care coordination
- Core functions
- Models of case management/ care coordination
- Working across settings and sectors
- Documentation, communication and information sharing within legal/ethical boundaries
Psychopharmacology
- Psychopharmacology foundations: common classes, monitoring, side effects, and medication-related decision-making
- Shared decision-making and supported choice
Therapeutic communication
- Rapport and empathy
- Therapeutic use of self
- Working with distress
Families, carers and community supports
- Working alongside families/carers
- Peer/lived experience supports
- Natural supports and community-led initiatives
Cultural responsiveness and inclusion
- Cultural responsiveness and safety
- Social and emotional wellbeing and working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- Refugee and migrant mental health considerations
- Working with interpreters
- Inclusive practice
Ethical, legal and professional foundations
- Overview of jurisdictional Mental Health Acts
- Human rights and least-restrictive practice principles
- Duty of care and dignity of risk
- Consent and capacity
- Privacy and confidentially
- Reporting and documentation
- Professional boundaries
Assessment strategy and rationale
To pass this unit, students must attempt and submit both assessment tasks, demonstrate achievement of every unit learning outcome, and obtain a minimum mark of 50%.
The assessment strategy supports the progressive development of foundational knowledge, critical reflection and applied professional reasoning in person‑led, rights‑based and lived experience–informed mental health practice. Assessment 1 uses a vignette to assess students’ ability to analyse person‑led practice, collaboration and shared decision‑making, and to critically examine the inclusion of families and carers through reasoned analysis using recovery‑oriented and strengths‑based frameworks (LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4). Assessment 2 extends this learning through a strengths‑based assessment and formulation portfolio that requires students to integrate assessment information, explanatory frameworks and service‑system knowledge to inform person‑led care planning and coordination within Australian mental health services. This sequence supports the consolidation and application of professional reasoning across assessment, formulation and planning processes (LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4).
Overview of assessments
Assessment 1: Practice Analysis Students analys...
Assessment 1: Practice Analysis
Students analyse a mental health vignette, drawing on professional reasoning, to critically examine person‑led, rights‑based and lived experience–informed practice, with particular attention to collaboration, shared decision‑making and inclusion of families and carers.
50%
Assessment 2: Strengths-based Formulation Studen...
Assessment 2: Strengths-based Formulation
Students develop a strengths‑based, holistic assessment and formulation to apply professional reasoning in person‑led care planning and coordination within Australian mental health service contexts.
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
Learning and teaching strategies utilised in this unit will support students in meeting the aim and achieving the learning outcomes relevant to this unit, as well as to the broader course learning outcomes. This unit uses an active learning approach to support students in the exploration of knowledge essential to person-led mental health practice. Delivered as fully online, asynchronous learning allows students to learn at their own pace within the parameters of the teaching term. Weekly modules are structured around an inquiry cycle (engage, explore, apply and reflect) that guides students from key concepts and evidence to analysis of authentic scenarios. Learning is further supported through facilitated asynchronous discussion forums, weekly online drop-in sessions, and an online assessment session for each assessment task with the unit's online facilitator. The discussion forums provide students with activities that encourage students to critically discuss concepts, share practice-based examples (including from their own professional contexts), and provide constructive peer feedback. These activities are designed to build a learning community and deepen critical reflection in a supported online environment. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress.