A main goal of the MEGA project is to integrate mental health into primary health care in South Africa and Zambia through the means of education. To reach this goal we are planning to train nurses in the use of a brief mental health screening tool for assessing mental health problems in young people.
For these reasons, the team at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg developed a train the trainer curriculum. The course covers mental health awareness, key facts about youth mental health and focuses specifically on helping nurses to identify signs and symptoms of depression in youth. The curriculum follows accepted adult professional learning principles and a blended learning approach.
During April and May 2019, we piloted the train the trainer curriculum with a class of German nursing sciences students at the HAW. The overall positive evaluation of the students and the trainers gave us constructive feedback for a further revision of the training. In July the revised material was piloted again by our colleagues at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein in a local clinic and we received valuable feedback.
