Getting Started with the Let's get real Learning Modules

This Getting Started learning module must be read in conjunction with the Let’s get real Overview which can be accessed from the Te Pou website, www.tepou.co.nz.

Let’s get real is a key action from Tauawhitia te Wero – Embracing the Challenge: National mental health and addiction workforce development plan 2006–2009 (Ministry of Health, 2005).

Let’s get real is a framework that describes the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes required to deliver effective mental health and addiction treatment services in New Zealand.

Let’s get real aims to:

• strengthen shared understandings – everyone, including service users, their families and whānau, support workers, regulated professionals, managers, funders and planners, people working in district health boards, and people working in non-government organisations, will understand the shared work that each person is engaged in
• affirm best practice – appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes will be better recognised and valued by services through human resources, performance management and professional development processes
• complement the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 – the Let’s get real framework brings together the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes required of all professions working in mental health and addiction, and complements the different competency frameworks developed by each of the registered professions whose members work in mental health or addiction treatment services
• improve transferability – other services around New Zealand will be able to recognise and value workers’ knowledge, skills and attitudes
• enhance effective workforce development – all mental health and addiction workforce development activities, including education and training, human resource strategies, organisational development, and research and evaluation, will link back to the Let’s get real framework
• increase accountability – by documenting the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for the job, we can demonstrate evidence against them to be more accountable to service users.