I've been making a few improvements to the way The Care Guy operates.

First - the podcast is now available on itunes. Just go to the itunes store and search 'The Care Guy' or 'The Care Guy show' and you can download the whole lot for free.

Second - The Care Guy is running a special offer for December 2012 and January 2013. If you book training to be delivered anywhere in UK during either of those months you'll get a massive 40% discount. That' means you'll save a full £200 per day with no hidden expenses. What you see is what you get.

So if you'd like to have first rate training delivered to your staff for only £300 per day give me a call.

You can see more about my training services here.

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If you have a mobile phone, a kindle, an iphone or ipad or any of a number of other electronic readers you can get the entire Mental Health Workers Guide from Kindle. If you don't have a kindle don't worry - just download the app (it's free) and turn your phone or PC into a Kindle reader.

Then nip on over to the Kindle store and get your copy of The Mental Health Workers' Guide in handy Ebook format.

You can buy it here

The ebook is the completed version of the developing blog series. It covers:

What’s a mental health worker worth?

The problem of specialisation

Three models of mental health and disorder

The biological (medical) model

The social model

Merging the two (stress and vulnerability)

The importance of physiology

The meaning of psychiatric diagnoses

Anxiety

The psychology of anxiety

Depression

The psychology of depression

Psychosis (introduction)

Hallucinations

Delusions part 1

Delusions part 2

Thought disorders

The dementias

Types of dementia – Alzheimer’s

Types of dementia – Vascular

Types of dementia – Lewy Body

Types of dementia – Parkinson’s

Types of dementia – Korsakoff’s

Types of dementia – Fronto-temporal

Types of dementia – Mixed

Orientation and memory

Delirium

The CAM scale

Working with the limbic system

Personality disorder

High Expressed Emotion

Sympathy is not usually helpful

More on the Stress & Vulnerability model of mental health and disorder

The invalidating environment

The Self-fulfilling prophecy

The meaning of recovery in mental health

The three types of recovery

Duty of care: A slug in a bottle

‘Hanged if you do, hanged if you don’t’ – a duty of care myth

There is no ‘us and them’

People are just people

Coping skills develop slowly

Lapse is different from relapse

Don’t expect your service user to perform perfectly.

The word ‘support’ is meaningless in and of itself

“It’s just behavioural” (A workers’ excuse for lazy thinking)

Challenging behaviour means….

Behaviours that harm the individual

Behaviours that harm other people

Do we need help?

Consequence, learned behaviour and the need for boundaries

Maintaining the problem

The whole team approach

Firm Boundaries

No ‘Pedestals’ And Staff Safety

Effective, Consistent Care

‘Corporate’ Identity – “You’re All The Same.”

Expectations

Self Harm

Self-harm as a response to trauma

Responding to a person who harms themselves

Individual v Organisational risk (Risk-free is impossible. Manageable risk is the way to go)

Don’t flap (more haste – less speed)

The saviour fantasy

You’re probably not an emergency service – don’t try to behave like one

Unhelpful thinking

Ignoring the positive

Exaggerating the negative

Overgeneralisation

Catastrophisation

Arbitrary inference

Determinism

Selective abstraction

Global thinking

Dichotomous thinking

Magical thinking (the Wizard did it)

Personalisation

Socratic dialogue and ‘the razors’.

The sticks we use to beat ourselves

Who put us in charge?

Final words

Part 16 of The Mental Health Workers' Guide looks at how to work with the limbic system in dementia care. Don't forget that you can download the video clips that accompany this series here.

Dementia 3: Delirium

Part 15 of The Mental Health Workers' Guide considers delirium and the dangers of mistaking it for dementia. Don't forget that you can download the video links that accompany this series here.

Part 14 of The Mental Health Workers' Guide looks at orientation and memory in dementia. Don't forget you can download the video clips supporting this series here.

Part 13 of 'The Mental Health Workers' Guide' will concentrate upon the dementias, what they are and how to recognise them. Then as The Guide progresses we'll look at some of the more useful things that care workers can do to help their residents and clients who suffer with these devastating disorders.

Buy the entire series as an Ebook here

Don't forget that you can download the movies accompanying The Guide here.

I've just uploaded three new course outlines for dementia care workers. The new, updated courses (which are now available) are:

Dementia awareness

The environment of dementia

Challenging behaviour in dementia

You can view the course outlines by clicking the links above. Click here to contact The Care Guy and arrange training for your organisation.