Approved Mental Health Professional Practice Handbook

Kevin Stone is the Social Work CPD Programme Manager at the University of the West of England. He is a qualified and practicing social worker and AMHP within the south-west region of the United Kingdom and has been a social worker since 2003. He currently teaches law and practice on the AMHP programme at the University of the West of England.Dr Sarah Vicary is Associate Head of School at The Open University. Sarah is a qualified registered social worker and has worked primarily in mental health services including as a frontline practitioner, an Approved Social Worker, manager of a multidisciplinary mental health crisis service and a senior manager for inner city emergency mental health services. Sarah was for nine years a Mental Health Act Commissioner.Tim Spencer-Lane is a lawyer who specialises in mental health, mental capacity and social care law. He is also a senior lecturer at Kingston University where he teaches on the best interests assessor and adult safeguarding courses and a long-standing Associate Lecturer at The Open University where he teaches on Social Work Law.

• Introduction;Section One: The AMHP in Context;AMHP practice context;Ethical issues in applying mental health law;Social perspectives in mental health;The multi-professional AMHP role;Section Two: The AMHP in Practice;Completing a Mental Health Act assessment;Risks and challenges in Mental Health Act assessments;Applying the interface between the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act;Exploring mental health treatment;Section Three: Developing Good Practice;Upholding rights, equality and anti-oppressive practice;Resilience as a trainee and practitioner;AMHP decision making.