Throughout the lengthy preparation phase for the training, there was a growing awareness that the MEGA training needs to offer learning opportunities for a heterogeneous group of trainees with diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. We, therefore, tried to produce compact learning material consisting of sound information about youth mental health issues in a way that opens up a space for discussion and reflection, Most of all we want to equip practitioners with a new skill – how to use the MEGA app.  The MEGA curriculum is split up in modules and trainers follow a manual in the form of a powerpoint presentation, which guides them step-by-step through a 6-hour training course. In order to guarantee a level of standardization, trainers should orientate towards the notes and follow the curriculum as much as possible. However, if there is a lack of time, the principle “less is more” applies. If the group of trainees is fairly advanced, the (online) material offers a variety of further readings.

The results of a short evaluation questionnaire all participants filled out after the training day show that the MEGA “Training the Trainer” course in Cape Town proved to be a success. Trainees enjoyed the mix of presentation, large and small group discussion and the hands-on practice session using the app in a role-play setting. They gave valuable feedback for the final revision of the MEGA app, which was appreciated by our partners from Riga who are launching the final version of the app. The MEGA trainers are ready to rumble and the MEGA team is excited to roll out the MEGA training in February 2020!

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.

The MEGA team at HAW is made up of two longstanding colleagues working alongside one another in the Department of Social Work. Gunter Groen, a psychologist and psychotherapist for adults, adolescents and children, holds a professorship of Psychology (clinical psychology and child psychotherapy) since 2010. His main teaching emphasis is on Clinical Psychology/Psychiatry and Developmental Psychology. As a qualified and licensed psychotherapist, he has longstanding experience in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with children, adolescents, adults and families. He worked for several years as a therapist in a child and adolescent psychiatry clinic and in private practice. He has published a number of psychotherapy guidelines and intervention material, especially for depression in children and adolescents, that combines a science-based approach to the understanding of mental (ill) health with an emphasis on the meaning of recovery and a person-first approach. He has extensive research experience regarding the promotion of child and adolescent mental health in youth welfare services and clinical child psychology (e.g. integrated services for children with challenging behavioural and emotional problems; interprofessional collaboration between child psychiatry and youth welfare services; prevention of anxiety disorders; prevalence of mental disorders in adolescence, prevention of depressive disorders in adolescence, use of ‘suicide internet forums’ and pathways to mental health care for refugees).

Astrid Jörns-Presentati has been a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Work since 2013. Before she joined the HAW, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Manchester and did her postgraduate studies in the Social Work Master’s program at the HAW. Her fields of expertise in teaching include undergraduate courses in developmental psychology, an interprofessional collaboration between mental health and child and youth welfare services and Recovery-oriented approaches in mental health. She has worked in a number of national and international research projects that focused on interprofessional collaboration between social work and child and youth psychiatry/psychotherapy and is currently pursuing her doctoral thesis with the same emphasis.

In the MEGA project, we are responsible for developing, piloting and conducting the train-the-trainer course for primary health care workers. Furthermore, we are responsible for monitoring ongoing activities in regard to a quality plan specifically developed for the MEGA project.