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KUF

In December 2007 the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice commissioned the development of a national framework to support people to work more effectively with personality disorder.

The partnership who were awarded the contract comprises of:

  • the Personality Disorder Institute (PDi), based at Nottingham University,
  • the London based Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust,
  • Borderline UK, the largest service user and carer support group in the UK focusing on the needs of those living with the experience of personality disorder, now part of ‘Emergence’ CIC, and
  • the Open University, the largest provider of work based education and e-learning materials in the UK.

This educational development work builds upon the aspirations articulated within the policy guidance documents “No longer a Diagnosis of Exclusion and Breaking the Cycle of Rejection” published in 2003. The key goal is to improve service user experience through developing the capabilities, skills and knowledge of the multi agency workforces in Health, Social Care and Criminal Justice who are dealing with the challenges of personality disorder.

The completed multilevel educational package includes the following:

  • Personality Disorder Virtual Learning Awareness Programme (‘Raising Awareness’)
  • Validated Undergraduate Degree Programme (‘Developing Understanding and Effectiveness’)
  • Validated Masters Degree Programme (‘Extending Expertise, Enhancing Practice’)

These high quality educational programmes will be delivered by leading practitioners and service user consultants. The Awareness Level Programme has a number of packages available including a Train the Trainers version. The BSc and MSc programmes are available as single stand-alone modules (suitable as units of learning such as for CPD), or as whole programmes with associated qualifications.

For further information regarding these courses, including programme aims and module outlines:

If you wish for further information regarding applying for one of the courses please contact:

Following the ten Regional Roadshows that were held in summer 2009, it became very clear that people in the field wanted the KUF materials to be widely available at awareness, undergraduate and post graduate levels. A concern was raised that the undergraduate and postgraduate courses were not affordable.

As a result of this we have now agreed a joint implementation strategy with the Ministry of Justice and the KUF partnership as a means of making the whole programme accessible to staff, service users and carers. We have agreed funding support to each region aimed at helping deliver the awareness level programme. For details of how to apply for this download:

There will be bursary support for people wanting to study the BSc and MSc courses – we will publish details of this shortly. If interested, contact Neil Gordon or Vicky Baldwin as above.

We are providing some initial central funding to build capacity for service users and carers to become KUF trainers. This is being managed through ‘Emergence’: contact Kath Lovell at Kathlovell@mac.com

Finally, we are going to focus on a few prisons and criminal justice settings to deliver a whole staff approach to awareness level training and from there develop a model of ‘psychologically informed planned environments’ (PIPEs). These will be environments which are specifically staffed to be ‘user friendly’ to everybody involved in them, by ensuring a high level of respect and understanding and valuing relationships.