This project will support the modernisation and internationalisation of Mongolian higher education by developing a post-graduate diploma for mental health nursing . Pedagogic skills of lecturing staff will be enhanced by training. The course is expected to improve outcomes for mental health service users by improving clinical skills, help reduce the stigma of mental illness by media coverage and increase applications to work in mental health services. This project will build on an existing relationship developed between UK and Mongolian universities and clinical staff since 2012. Mongolia has one of the lowest levels of medical and nursing staff in mental health care in the world. There is no formal training in mental health for nurses, and a lack of community service provision. Clinical staff have limited access to information on advancements in research or clinical practice, as resources are not available in Mongolian.The project consortium from Finland, the Netherlands and the UK propose to address this. They have partnered with the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences (MNUMS) and two Mongolian private universities to develop a training program based on combined best practice from the 4 countries, tailored to the meet the needs of Mongolians. The project will collate educational curricula, materials, guidance and standards for review by the project partners and carry out a training needs analysis for Mongolian nurses. The curriculum content will be developed and piloted over 18 months with a cohort of 12 students. A series of observational and training visits to clinical and educational settings across Europe will take place for both students and lecturers over a 20 month period. Achieving an international consensus on core components of mental health nurse training will be a novel output from this project. Open access to the project materials and course content will enable easy adoption in other countries with similar need.
We aimed to enhance pedagogic skills of lecturing staff , address the stigma of mental illness and increase recruitment, particularly of men, to nursing, improve clinical skills of the mental healthcare workforce and improve the status of nursing in Mongolian society and of mental health nursing in both the programme countries and in Mongolia, The project also aimed to establish and embed relationships between the partner and programme country HEIs to be continued after the project end.
Mongolia had one of the lowest levels of staff in mental health care in the world. There was an absence of formal training in mental health for nurses and there continues to be a lack of community service provision and access to modern texts and evidence to inform practice. Furthermore, clinical staff have limited access to information on advancements in research or clinical practice, as up-to-date resources are not available in Mongolia.
<< Background >> Mongolia had one of the lowest levels of staff in mental health care in the world. There was an absence of formal training in mental health for nurses and there continues to be a lack of community service provision and access to modern texts and evidence to inform practice. Furthermore, clinical staff have limited access to information on advancements in research or clinical practice, as up-to-date resources are not available in Mongolia. << Objectives >> We aimed to enhance pedagogic skills of lecturing staff , address the stigma of mental illness and increase recruitment, particularly of men, to nursing, improve clinical skills of the mental healthcare workforce and improve the status of nursing in Mongolian society and of mental health nursing in both the programme countries and in Mongolia, The project also aimed to establish and embed relationships between the partner and programme country HEIs to be continued after the project end. << Implementation >> We reviewed educational curricula, materials, guidance, and standards for mental health nursing and conducted a ‘before and after’ analysis of training needs. Course development took 18 months, and 24 students were selected to participate piloting the course delivery. Visits to clinical and educational settings in the programme countries was scheduled for both students and lecturers towards the end of the project but were unable to be carried out due to COVID travel restrictions. << Results >> We achieved an international consensus on a 6-month course in mental health for nurses and implemented it as a pilot during the project. We hosted 51 preparatory sessions for lecturing staff to prepare them to deliver the course, and recruited 22 nurses as students for the pilot, of which 19 graduated. We translated 214 texts to support the programme, purchased 180569 euros of equipment, and delivered 202 teaching sessions., in addition to English language courses for 40 people.