Specialist Training Course in Mental Health and Organizational Development
The Specialist Training Course in Mental Health and Organizational Development is a post-graduate correspondence course primarily for helping professionals. The length of the course is four semesters (120 credit points); the language of instruction is Hungarian.
The course is aimed at helping professionals and participants interested in such work. In contrast to the simplistic use of the term in everyday language, helping professions are understood here to include all occupations that work to support, develop, educate, nurture and cure others, take care of them or help them in any other way. The program does not wish to offer a fundamentally new professional identity or the tricks of yet another ’trade’. Our graduates gain far more than simply a second degree; they gain additional knowledge in mental health, which they can greatly benefit from in their work as leaders, teachers, doctors, social workers or ministers of the church.
The objective of the course is to develop a complex (mental health-oriented) set of approaches, knowledge base, aptitudes and skills that enable students to pursue their original helping profession in a wider context, at a higher level of efficiency and awareness. They become “better” teachers, ministers, doctors, nurses or social workers by developing their psychological-social competence. They can approach problems, be it an unresolved issue on individual or institutional level, from different directions and reflect on them from a variety of angles. Their reflective skills become stronger and their scope of action increases. They become more open to, and better prepared for, cooperation and development in relation to human services. All this helps them to outline the areas for future improvement in their current professional activity, the ultimate goal being to generate positive change primarily in their own field of work. It can thus be said that mental health theory goes beyond words; it is a theory of action.
Consequently, key concepts of this specialist training course include: development of self-knowledge and social knowledge, vocational development and development of vocational personality, burnout prevention, interdisciplinary cooperation, helping relationships, spontaneous and professional networks of community support, operational awareness, mental health interventions, management of change, theory of leadership and organizational culture.
For further information contact
Máté JOÓB PhD (joob.mate@public.semmelweis-univ.hu)