Mental Health Worker (CERT)
Department website: https://www.cerritos.edu/medical-assisting/
CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT
This program will train students to help individuals with mental health conditions with tasks such as gaining employment, finding housing, using community resources, becoming financial competent, and other activities that promote an independent lifestyle. The training offered for the Certificate and AA degree is comprehensive and intensive. Students will learn skills and knowledge from the lens of rehabilitation and the recovery model, and this program will prepare students for entry-level work in behavioral health-related fields such as psychology, social work, and/or human services. Finally, students will be given the opportunity to practice the knowledge and skills that they have gained from classroom instruction, in a behavioral health environment as a part of our Field Experience class.
Program Student Learning Outcomes
- Student use personal and professional communication appropriate to the client's developmental age, educational level, communication style, and cultural/ethnic identify.
- Student use personal and professional communication appropriate to the client's developmental age, educational level, communication style, and cultural/ethnic identify.
- Students employ basic documentation of client care and care coordination.Students engage in problem solving that will lead to the client's desired outcome. Student differential between the psychosocial and the medical paradigms of mental illness, rehabilitation, and recovery.
- Students identify clients' individual needs, wants, choices, and preferences.
- Students recognize the ethical, legal, and confidentiality issues that apply to the community mental health field.
- Students use basic interviewing techniques and the active listening skills of empathy, compassion, and self-awareness.
- Students utilize the DSM classification system, not as a diagnostic but as an assessment tool, to distinguish and assess abnormal behaviors.
Program Requirements
| Code Number | Course Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| SWHS 151 | Principles of Recovery and Psychosocial Rehabilitation | 3.0 |
| SWHS 152 | Helping Relationships | 3.0 |
| SWHS 272 | Special Populations | 3.0 |
| SWHS 273A | Social Work and Human Services Fieldwork Experience | 3.0 |
| or SWHS 273B | Mental Health Worker Field Experience | |
| PSYC 271 | Abnormal Psychology | 3.0 |
| PSYC C1000 | Introduction to Psychology | 3.0 |
| Total Units | 18 | |
Recommended Courses
| Code Number | Course Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| PSYC 103 | Critical Thinking In Psychology | 3.0 |
| PSYC 150 | Personal and Social Adjustment | 3.0 |
| PSYC 210 | Elementary Statistics | 4.0 |
| PSYC 220 | Research Methods | 4.0 |
| PSYC 241 | Introduction to Psychobiology | 3.0 |
| PSYC 245 | Drugs and Behavior | 3.0 |
| or HO 245 | Drugs and Behavior | |
| PSYC 251 | Developmental Psychology | 3.0 |
| PSYC 261 | Social Psychology | 3.0 |
| PSYC 275 | Cultural Psychology | 3.0 |