Mental Capacity Act and Sexual Activity 24/25

Target Group:

This course is targeted to adult social care staff and those in residential care, nursing care, home care and supported living settings, personal assistants and other frontline practitioners who have regular contact with service users/patients and their families or carers in the London Borough of Sutton. 

Staff Groups B, C, D, and E as per the Bournemouth University National Mental Capacity Act Competency Framework. 
Level 3 staff and above (ref: NHS Intercollegiate document 2018 - Adult Safeguarding: Roles and Competencies For Healthcare Staff): registered health care staff who engage in assessing, planning, intervening and evaluating the needs of adults where there are safeguarding concerns (as appropriate to role). 

The course is also open to the children’s workforce but participants need to have undertaken the MCA 16-18 year old course before attending this training. 
Please note: Participants should already be familiar with the principles and application of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 before attending this course, for example have attended the MCA Awareness training.

Aims:

The aim of this course is to:

• Give participants an overall understanding of how the Mental Capacity Act 2005 applies to issues of sexual activities, for example if a service user who has a learning disability wants to have a sexual relationship; or if one half of a couple wants to continue a sexual relationship even though his/her spouse may no longer have the capacity to consent to it.

Special Instructions:

Participants should already be familiar with the principles and application of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 before attending this course, for example to have attended the MCA Awareness training.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course participants will have:

• An increased knowledge about the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Code of Practice in relation to sexual activity and the Sexual Offences Act 2003;
• An increased knowledge of what constitutes “consent”, “abuse” and “exploitation” and how it applies to case work;
• An ability to identify the links with safeguarding, the Sexual Offences Act, the Care Act and the Human Rights Act, and identify when a safeguarding referral may and may not be appropriate;
• An improved understanding of the difference between an “arranged” marriage and a “forced” marriage;
• An improved understanding about the legal framework from having explored a range of cases concerning sexual activities which have been brought before the Court of Protection;
• An ability to identify the skills of how to assess whether an individual has the capacity to consent to sexual activity, using the guidelines which have been established by the Court of Protection;
• An improved awareness of examples in relation to the sexual activity of their service users, and made plans (if appropriate) to deal with these;
• An improved awareness of links with other related issues such as marriage, civil partnership, pregnancy, parenthood, and child welfare;
• An improved confidence to explore the (delicate) issues of sex and sexual activities in practice.