ETHICS - At Risk Clients

Question 1

What do you do if someone is has mentioned they are having thoughts of suicide?

Answer 1

1. Risk assessment
2. Look at risk - what is it - if moderate to high
3. Put a safety plan into action

Question 2

What is serious harm?

Answer 2

Serious harm is a broad term that can best be understood in terms of its everyday usage. It can include: physical harm harm to reputation and relationships financial harm self-neglect neglect of others, e.g. the person‟s children.

Question 3

Who is a mentally ill person - what are the characteristics?

Answer 3

A mentally ill person is someone who is suffering from a mental illness and owing to that illness there are reasonable grounds for believing that care, treatment or control of the person is necessary: for the person‟s own protection from serious harm, or for the protection of others from serious harm.

In considering whether someone is a mentally ill person, their continuing condition, including any likely deterioration in their condition and the likely effects of any such deterioration, are to be taken into account.

Question 4

What is a mental illness for the purposes of the Act? (s4)

Answer 4

Mental illness for the purposes of the Act means a condition that seriously impairs, either temporarily or permanently, the mental functioning of a person and is characterised by the presence of any one or more of the following symptoms:

Question 5

What is a mental illness for the purposes of the Act? (s4)

Answer 5

Mental illness for the purposes of the Act means a condition that seriously impairs, either temporarily or permanently, the mental functioning of a person and is characterised by the presence of any one or more of the following symptoms:

Delusions
Hallucinations 
Serious disorder of thought form 
Severe disturbance of mood 
Sustained or repeated irrational behaviour indicating the presence of one or more of the symptoms mentioned above.

The symptoms included in this definition should be given their ordinary accepted meanings in the psychological sciences, without reference to overly clinical complexities or distinctions. For example a „delusion‟ may be considered to be a false, fixed and irrational belief held in the face of evidence normally sufficient to negate that belief, and a „hallucination‟ is considered to be a subjective sensory experience for which there is no apparent external source or stimulus.

Question 6

When can a person be admitted to hospital?

Answer 6

When they can be defined as being mentally ill - which is different from mental health issue

Mental disorder when you act in a way that could put others at risk (high on drugs - crisis-death) _ mental disorder

You can still be scheduled - when you pose a risk of harm to yourself and others

Normally goes to tribunal for assessment
Assessed in 12 hour by officer; then detained and second assessment