CEPDL

Improving Specialist Mental Health Services

Psychologist: Alison Alexander, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Specialist Mental Health Service, Canterbury.
Timeframe: January 2024 to June 2024 (1 day a week, 25 days in total)
Nature of the project:

• Following a lengthy process to obtain ethics approval, the effectiveness of a treatment designed to help culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women after the March 15 terrorist attack was evaluated. Findings were that the participants wellbeing improved across all measures and treatment was well-received.
• Provided refugee and migrant psychology training to final-year clinical psychology interns at University of Canterbury.
• Having initiated a pilot to change recruitment into the anxiety disorders service, results of the pilot were reviewed, and a poster was written for dissemination/publication. Findings showed it was feasible to recruit participants into group treatment from the waitlist, and assessments increased, reducing the overall waitlist. Treatment was received in a shorter time, with the overall impact of reducing time in the service. The project involved identifying and integrating permanent service delivery changes following the successful pilot.

Improving Te Reo and Tikanga for a Clinician in Paedatrics at Middlemore Hospital

Psychologist: Dr Kathryn Russell, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Paediatric Consult Liaison, Counties Manukau.
Timeframe: August to October 2024
Nature of the project:

• Completing two university papers in Te Reo Māori.
• Attending marae, Māori health services and ropu, such as assisting at Kohanga reo for children with health and other needs.
• Attending an indigenous wellbeing conference.

Establishing the Feasibility of Brief Screening and Interventions with People Living with Diabetes

Psychologist: Dr Joanna McClintock, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Waikato.
Timeframe: April to June 2024
Nature of the project:

• Attendance at New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes Annual Scientific Meeting. Presenting a poster at the NZSSD ASM on Diabetes, Body Satisfaction, and Eating Behaviours. Attendance at World Congress of International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines.
• Liaison with psychologists working in diabetes services across the motu. Literature review on psychosocial screening and care in diabetes and chronic health conditions. Survey to psychologists working in diabetes care, to determine their role within diabetes services. Review of abstracts submitted to NZSSD over the last four years. Site visits and team discussions with Taranaki, Bay of Plenty and Waikato.
• Report with recommendations about improving tools and resources in use in services supporting people with diabetes.

Creating a Training Module on Dissociation 

Psychologist: Dr Sue Galvin, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Canterbury
Timeframe: May to October 2024 (2 days per week)
Nature of the project:

• Ran short in-services (30-45 minutes) with four mental health teams on dissociation. Found out what was new to clinicians, and what they yearned to hear more about. Many clinicians expressed they knew that they had been in the presence of dissociative experiences and all were keen to gain confidence in approaching it.
• Developed a one-day workshop on dissociation for clinicians in Canterbury’s specialist mental health services.
• The training includes modules on what dissociation is, why it might develop, what it looks like in clients, and how to respond when a client is experiencing dissociation. There will be some information about the dissociative disorders, but this will not be training in diagnosing these disorders. There will be a module on cultural and spiritual experiences that might look like dissociation, and that will be co-presented with one of the Te Korowai Atawhai team. There will be practical exercises in responding to a dissociative presentation, and in giving psychoeducation about dissociation to a client using a poster that participants can put up in their work areas.

ICAMHS Treatment Pathways in Aotearoa – An Overview 

Psychologist: Dr Jeffrey Olrick, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, ICAMHS, Waikato.
Timeframe: October to December 2024
Nature of the project: 

• The purpose of this CEPDL was to determine what, if any, stepped-care practices were being utilized in ICAMH services in New Zealand, and to survey treatment approaches and processes within ICAMH teams more broadly.
• A range of activities were completed, including a literature review, site visits to ICAMH services in New Zealand and Australia, interviews with researchers investigating stepped-care practice, and conference attendance. 12 ICAMH teams in New Zealand and two in Australia were visited.
• The project resulted in a report on ICAMHS Treatment Pathways in Aotearoa – an overview, which included a summary of current non-pharmacological practice in Oceania ICAMH services, practice components that appear to affect client flow and equity, and recommendations on how to improve services through treatment pathway structures, modularized treatment programmes, clear communication with patients, and maintaining clear boundaries between crisis care and treatment pathways.

Improving Patient Outcomes for People Living with Diabetes Through Clinical Training 

Psychologist: Lisa Hoyle, Consultant Health Psychologist, Diabetes and Renal, Counties Manukau.
Timeframe: 14 April 2025 to 20 June 2025 (upcoming)
Nature of the project: 

• A one-week observership at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
• Scoping/needs assessment of the gaps in clinician knowledge of the modifiable psychological factors that improve health care, with particular emphasis on long term conditions and tangata whai ora adherence behaviours.
• Develop a training programme to meet gaps in clinical knowledge of modifiable psychological factors which could include e-modules for all clinicians, focussed training/education sessions, how to get rapport, promote behaviour change, in vivo feedback and training, strategy and guidelines. Centred on modifiable behaviours such as adherence.