Professional education

The degree programme sets out to train professional educators able to:
-Identify physical, psychological and social needs, assess the assistance needs of persons of different ages, cultures and states of health in various social conditions;
- Collaborate in the assessment of psycho-social distress, mental disability correlated to mental illness and pathological addictions, and identify the healthy areas and potential of patients;
- Measure the resources and constraints of the family, social and environmental context;
- Collaborate in identifying the psychiatric and geriatric care and rehabilitation objectives, planning specific interventions for the recovery and development of the patients in care;
- Implement education and rehabilitation projects for self-care, collaboration in the care project, interpersonal relations of varying complexity, work activity and personal autonomy;
- Work in primary prevention projects in the community to promote networking, facilitate inclusion and management of risk situations and the manifested pathologies;
- Run mental health education projects for individuals and groups;
- Work with families and the social community to facilitate inclusion;
- Apply the results of research into rehabilitation to improve the quality of interventions;
- Recognise and respect all competences in order to work with colleagues and other multi-professional teams.
Curriculum:
Year 1 provides students with basic healthcare and pedagogic knowledge, as well as the fundamentals of the profession, required to tackle the first internship experiences which guide students in a professional context. Internships are performed in services and communities working with psychiatric patients, drug addiction and disabilities.
Year 2 develops clinical knowledge and professional skills in the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients and drug addiction. Students are able to perform internships in: drug addiction centres; residential and semi-residential communities for patients with mild or medium-serious psychiatric problems; semi-residential centres for patients with medium-serious disabilities.
Year 3 covers specialist studies as well as the acquisition of methodological knowledge to exercise the profession and group working skills; students progressively take on greater responsibility while supervised by experts. Internships are performed mainly in local public healthcare services, including Pathological Dependence, Adult Psychiatry and Child Neuropsychiatry services.Methodological skills are developed through specific seminars and applied to scientific research for the preparation of the dissertation.

Admission to the degree programme is subject to the possession of either a five-year high secondary school diploma or other suitable qualification obtained abroad.Candidates must also possess the knowledge and skills defined each year by the Ministerial Decree setting out the rules for the entrance exam for the degree programmes planned at the national level.
The number of students eligible for enrolment, the date of the entrance exam and the related selection procedures will be published each year in the call for applications.
The methods for verifying the knowledge required for admission are defined in the degree programme teaching regulations.
If the assessment is not positive, additional learning requirements will be specified.
Completion of the learning requirements is the subject of a separate test.
The relevant testing method is also set out in the degree programme teaching regulations.
Students who do not complete the additional learning requirements by the date established by the competent bodies and, in any case, by the end of the first year of the degree programme, will be unable to sit exams in the following years.