Published: 13th January 2021.
Written by Jodie Magrath
A Diploma of Mental Health is an excellent way to advance your career in health care or community services. Whether you want to get started in this industry or just improve your skills and knowledge in this area, this course will allow you to better support people living with mental health issues. You might provide counselling services, promote mental health in the community or provide advocacy and referrals. This qualification includes a work placement so you’ll gain real world experience in the field.
The Diploma of Mental Health explores a range of topics relevant to the mental health industry. You’ll learn how to work collaboratively with other health or community service providers to ensure your clients’ needs are met. You’ll learn about managing grief and trauma and maintaining personal safety. You’ll look at ways to help people affected by drugs and alcohol and how to facilitate recovery for your clients.
Working in mental health services is an ideal career path for those who enjoy helping others. If you find it rewarding to see clients progress towards their goals, this could be a great line of work for you. Mental Health Workers need to have excellent personal skills and be good at listening. You’ll need to be able to communicate with clients, families and other service providers. It’s important that you are understanding and can work well with people from a range of backgrounds.
A Diploma of Mental Health is an ideal course of study for the following careers:
Mental Health Worker
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Mental Health Worker provides assistance to people with a range of mental health issues. They might work in a health care facility or for a community service provider. Mental Health Workers may specialise in a particular area such as drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness or social issues such as poverty, unemployment or homelessness. They may work directly with clients, prepare treatment plans or provide referral services.
Social Worker
Social Workers provide a range of support to people who are going through a tough time. They might provide emotional support through counselling or guidance or they may help with practical issues by referring them to other support providers like housing services. Social workers play a key role in helping people through traumatic events like domestic violence or assault or they may help clients make positive changes in their life.
Counsellor
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Counsellor helps clients to work through challenging issues in their lives. They might provide advice, guidance or assist them to come up with solutions to their problems. Counsellors might help people recover from a particular event or help them deal with other problems such as mental health issues or substance abuse. They might work in a specialised field such as relationship breakdowns, gambling or unemployment.
Higher education pathways
A Diploma of Mental Health will give you the knowledge and skills to expand your career in this field. You might choose to specialise your skills with a Diploma of Counselling which will allow you to develop various counselling strategies and interviewing skills. You could also consider an Advanced Diploma of Nursing (Mental Health) where you’ll learn how to conduct clinical assessments and specialise in an area such as case management, recovery facilitation or rural and remote nursing.
If you decide to further your career in mental health services you could enrol in a university degree such as a Bachelor of Psychological Science or a Bachelor of Health Science (Mental Health). This will deepen your knowledge in this field and increase your employment opportunities. A university degree may allow you to take on a position in mental health services with more responsibility. You may be able to use a Diploma of Mental Health as a pathway to these courses.
Getting started
If the Diploma of Mental Health interests you, make sure you request information from a range of different course providers. It’s important that you find out about the duration of the course, costs, any prerequisites and the content the course will cover. There is usually some variation between course providers, so getting all the details will make it easier to find the right course for you. The Diploma of Mental Health may be offered online or on campus.