Program Overview

The overall aim of the Master of Perinatal Mental Health programme is to support health care professionals to work more effectively with parents and their families experiencing perinatal mental health issues. A key goal of this programme is to prepare practitioners for the challenges of leading and delivering quality of perinatal mental health care. To achieve this goal the programme content focusses on providing practitioners with the theoretical underpinnings for the development of knowledge and skills in areas of assessment, screening and therapeutic interventions for persons with perinatal mental health issues.

On completion of the programme students will be able to:

• Appraise evidence informing health care practice in monitoring, coordinating and managing perinatal mental health
• Demonstrate in-depth knowledge and understanding of the assessment and care required to support perinatal mental health
• Critically review current innovations and developments within perinatal mental health
• Discuss factors that influence practice and theoretical knowledge in relation to perinatal mental health
• Value the collaboration within inter-profession teams in the provision of quality perinatal mental health care delivery
• Critically discuss the individual roles of the inter-professional team in the provision of effective perinatal mental health care
• Demonstrate the critical thinking skills and the ethical decision making required in the provision of perinatal mental health care
• Critically evaluate, generate and conduct research that will incorporate evidence based practice in perinatal mental health
• Critically appraise strategies to promote, maintain and restore perinatal mental health in relevant care groups
• Critically appraise international and national strategies that are relevant to advancing perinatal mental health care
• Demonstrate synthesis in the integration of national and international evidence to inform perinatal mental health care