School: Nursing and Midwifery

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Forensic Mental Health
  • Unit Code

    CMH5217
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    2
  • Credit Points

    20
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Jennifer HAMILTON

Description

Students will gain an extensive knowledge of theoretical and practical issues in forensic mental health including a critical awareness of the current issues, debates and insights within the specialty. The diversity of the forensic population, legal and criminal justice systems will be explored. How individual mental health factors influence offending behaviour will also be discussed. Students will learn the principles of working effectively with forensic mental health clients and explore the perceptions mental health professionals may have about working with this population.

Co-Requisite Rule

Students must have completed or be concurrently enrolled in CMH5109 and CMH5110.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Evaluate legal, ethical and policy dimensions of contemporary forensic mental health practice including cultural and organisational dimensions.
  2. Appraise the process of effective assessment and management of forensic mental health clients in a range of settings.
  3. Analyse the possible pathways by which mental disorders are linked to offending, and how these disorders influence different types of behaviours.
  4. Critically reflect on the role of a therapeutic alliance when working with forensic mental health clients.
  5. Critically review a range of strategies to identify and promote the establishment of therapeutic relationships with forensic mental health clients.

Unit Content

  1. Social context and demographics of the forensic population and how mental disorders link with offending behaviour.
  2. Mental Health Act and legal frameworks in forensic mental health, e.g. Mentally Disordered Offenders Act, Prisons Act.
  3. Boundaries, challenges and ethical dimensions in the forensic context.
  4. Assessing risk, risk reduction and risk management in the forensic mental health context, including violence and aggression.
  5. Treatment and management of forensic mental health clients, including the establishing of a therapeutic alliance and collaborative working in multidisciplinary teams

Learning Experience

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Additional Learning Experience Information

Students will engage and learn through a range of interactive and contemporary methods of teaching and learning. These include online learning, virtual environments, discussion boards, interactive web cases/quizzes, and e-reading packages.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
ExerciseDiscussion board activity 20%
ReportConsiderations for effective management of a client with forensic mental health issues 40%
EssayIssues associated with delivery of forensic mental health care 40%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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