Working with people who self-harm

Self-harm is a major public health issue, particularly among children and young people. It is difficult to measure the extent of the issue in the population, but evidence suggests that self-harm affects at least one in 15 young people. It is an expression of acute psychological distress and it is often, though not always, associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders (East Midlands Public Health Observatory, Prevalence of self harm). Self-harm occurs in all sections of the population but is more common among those who are socio-economically disadvantaged or those who are single or divorced, live alone, are single parents or have a severe lack of social support.

Since many acts of self-harm do not come to the attention of healthcare services, hospital attendance rates do not reflect the true scale of the problem.

The National Statistics 'Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity among Adults Living in Private Households' (2000) suggested that in Great Britain:

• Between 4.6% and 6.6% of people have self harmed. However, the survey suggests that even this might be an underestimate.

Self-harm can occur at any age but it more common in adolescence and young adulthood. Overall, women are more likely to self-harm than men and this is most pronounced in adolescence where girls may be more than three times more likely to self-harm than boys.

The aim of this module is to enable the delegate to acquire the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes to meet the needs of individuals who self-harm and their significant others. Those in attendance will also be able to:

• To develop and enhance competencies to enable critical appraisal of their therapeutic practice with people who self-harm.
• To evaluate the care delivery within a reflective framework.

Objectives

By the end of the module, you will be able to

• Interpret, discuss and apply relevant issues in the care management of people who self-harm.
• Critically appriase collaborative evidence based pratice with peole who self-harm.
• To construct and debate new paradigms around clinical practice when working with people who self-harm.
• Use reflection to critically evaluate practice when working with people who self-harm.
• Illustrate examples of the parallel process that often occurs between people who self-harm and their helpers/carers.

12/06/2013 09:00 - 25/06/2013 17:00