t: 0116 241 8331 e: office@apt.ac
The DICES® System for risk assessment and management:
a person-centred risk formulation approach for mental health professionals.
This exciting risk assessment and management approach is designed for use by whole services and organisations, and is used by over 6,000 mental health professionals in the UK and Ireland. This empowering course (available in 3-day and 2-day formats) will give you best-practice tools to help you recognise, assess and manage risks including: suicide, self-neglect, violence and sexual assault.
It gives you APT’s level one Accreditation in DICES, with the option of sitting an exam to obtain level two (free of charge) and from there through more study right up to APT's DICES Masterclass and level four Accreditation.
Founded in 1981, APT has grown to become a trusted source of gold-standard training, from introductory through to masterclass level. Over 150,000 mental health professionals have attended APT’s post-qualification courses, commissioned by more than 120 NHS Trusts and all major independent providers.
The DICES System uniquely combines built-in APT Accreditation with automatic access to our renowned post-course resources to help you support your clients. It is available for both teams and individuals, face-to-face or online, and can also count towards The APT Diploma in Psychological Therapies and The APT Diploma for working in Secure Psychiatric and Forensic Settings.
Executive Summary:
The DICES® system makes risk assessment clear, structured and person-centred. Over 6,000 professionals now use the DICES® Checklists to support their practice because they are practical prompts, not questionnaires – they help clinicians bring together key factors, apply their expertise, and create a person-centred risk formulation in line with NICE guidance.
At its heart is the DICES® ‘risk triad’:
- Identify and formulate risk.
- Manage the risk.
- Deliver effective treatment with confidence.
The training covers the first two of those and introduces the third, and is available as a 2-day course for most practitioners, and a 3-day course for senior personnel or DICES® champions who need greater depth.
Who should attend?
Everyone who works with people in specialisms such as: Adult Mental Health, Children and Adolescents, Older People, Substance Misuse, Forensic, Learning Disability, and Brain Injury.
The professional affiliations of people attending this course include: mental-health nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, educational psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers and others.
The course covers:
Module One: Core knowledge about risk formulation, risk assessment and risk management.
- Clarifying what our professional responsibilities are in relation to risk assessment and management and how this relates to our clinical work.
- What happens when things go wrong: themes from inquiries.
Module Two: Risk assessment and the DICES checklists.
- The nature of risk-assessment, the problems associated with it, and how to avoid them.
- Fixed and fluid factors and the importance of each.
- Video analysis: being person centred and yet responding to risk.
- Introducing the DICES® checklists, and practice in the use of Brief-DICE.
- Using DICES-S (suicide), and an examination of factors associated with suicide.
- Using the other DICES checklists, covering: self-neglect and vulnerability; violence to others (including you the professional); sex offending; risks that older people are at; risks posed by people who misuse mood-altering substances; risks that children and adolescents are at, including toddlers and unborn children.
Module 3: Risk Management.
- Definition and description of risk management: once you have noticed a risk, you need to help the person with their short and long term needs, while doing everything you can to prevent the risk happening.
- Options for managing risk – (a) where there is a risk of harm to self, (b) where there is a risk of harm to others (possibly including you or other professionals), (c) where there are multiple risks.
- The DICES risk management checklists, listing the key areas you can helpfully address.
- A worked example of risk management.
Module 4: To deliver timely and effective treatment, whilst being secure that you are managing the risk as well as it is possible to do so.
- Risk formulation is vital, but you also want to feel secure that you have done it well: using the DICES® acronym for this.
- Whose benefit is this for - the professional, the patient, the organisation, all of those?
- The limits of risk formulation: your priority always to provide timely and effective treatment if it is possible to do so.
Teaching methods.
- Exercises: Real Life case examples and how you would respond.
- Video.
- Lecture and discussion.
- Small group exercises and quizzes.
What this course will do for you:
- It will provide you with the DICES® checklists, informing you on risks around: Suicide; Self-Neglect and Vulnerability; Violence; Sexual Assault, so you can produce a risk formulation while you prioritise helping your clients with their needs.
- You will have checklists covering risks specifically applicable to older people, children and adolescents, and people who misuse mood-altering substances. Also a screening checklist, to assess whether any at all of the above are relevant for a specific person.
- You will have a simple and empowering definition of risk management, and know how to manage risk in the best ways possible. You will know where the risk management traps are, and how to avoid them, and how this fits in with your priority of helping the person.
- You will be able to demonstrate that you have assessed and managed risk to the highest standards, and that you maintain risk assessment and management habits that are up to 'best practice' standards.
- You will be registered at APT as having attended the course, and receive a certificate to acknowledge your APT-Accreditation and registration.
What you receive as a result of attending the training:
You will be registered as having attended the course, thereby gaining APT's Level 1 accreditation, and receive a certificate to this effect. The accreditation gives you access to online resources associated with the course and free access to the online exam if you wish to uprate your APT accreditation to Level 2. (Note, the exam to uprate your accreditation to Level 2 is inbuilt in the 'online anytime' version of the course.)
Your registration lasts indefinitely, whilst your accreditation lasts for 3 years from the date of completion and is renewable.
Your accreditation is given value by the fact of over 150,000 people having attended APT training. See APT accreditation for full details.
Booking is easy...
|
NICE guidelines relevant to this course:
Preventing Suicide in community and custodial settings (NG105) ❯
Self-harm in over 8s: short-term management and prevention of recurrence (CG16) ❯
|
Quick Links
The DICES® System for Risk Assessment & Management ❯
Feedback for The DICES® System ❯
Evidence for The DICES® System ❯
Live Feedback Ratings.
Every delegate rates our courses for presentation and relevance and the averages below update automatically as each new course runs.
These live results also power APT’s acclaimed Accreditation System — so widely valued because it is evidence-based, drawing directly on the real-time ratings of professionals who have completed the training.
Face-to-Face*
Presentation:
Relevance:
Online Live*
Presentation:
Relevance:
Online Anytime**
Overall Rating:
* Feedback taken from the last 10 runnings of this course (each course has around 15 people attending).
** Feedback taken from the last 20 people completing the course. Delegates give a single overall rating to anytime courses.
If the course has run less than the stated number of times, the percentage score will be based on the number of times the course has been completed.
Reviews.
APT prides itself on the feedback we receive about our courses. Below are just some of the great comments the The DICES® System for Risk Assessment and Management has received.
“The best risk assessment course I have ever attended. The tools were precise and relevant to my practice. The management aspect was well explained and the practical examples were very good and informative."
“I have undergone many risk management trainings and this was by far the most informative, interesting and well presented. I will definitely recommend to other organisations I work for."
