Reflective practice and team teaching in mental health care

AIM: To develop and test new approaches to professional education that would address issues of team capacity and readiness to learn, thereby strengthening the ability to practise reflectively. METHOD: The time out and the debrief approaches to team training in core competencies were piloted with ten care teams in the north west of England. Pre- and post-training measures of competency were obtained to assess the effectiveness of the training. RESULTS: The results show that competence measures taken after attending the programme were significantly higher than those taken before training. Self-assessments and manager assessments supported this, indicating that the training had a positive effect on the overall capability of practitioners. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that the innovative educational process created in this study could be used to support the structures of reflexivity and thoughtful practice. This educational process could be used to support practitioners to fully embrace work challenges.