Delivering New Services: Changes in Professional Roles

This chapter considers how best to predict and influence the future public mental health and social care models of service as a means of determining what will be required of mental health professionals. We draw from existing literature in exploring the contemporary debate about achieving ‘healthy’ communities with mentally healthy individuals who are sustained and supported by a mental health and well-being workforce. Within the chapter the implications of an evolving approach to contemporary public mental health and social care delivery are explored. We consider the elements that influence how health care is delivered, and how they influence health professional roles. The education and training requirement for new mental health professional roles capable of delivering new services is touched upon. How these political debates promote and enable mental health and well-being of individuals, living and working within ‘healthy’ communities, will be used to further a critical debate on future-proofing the mental health professions.