Associate Professor Andrea Bugarcic

Naturopathic students undertaking clinical practicum placements in community health settings face a distinct preparatory challenge when serving people with chronic and severe mental illness, substance use disorders and associated socioeconomic adversity. Australian research identifies that undergraduate naturopathic education curriculum should include mental health literacy. And yet, international literature confirms that non-psychologist health professionals frequently report insufficient preparation for complex psychosocial presentations, a pattern extending across medicine, pharmacy, and allied health disciplines. This practice report describes a proactive, tutorial-based pedagogical intervention developed at Southern Cross University (SCU) for Master of Naturopathic Medicine students prior to a practicum placement at a community service. The intervention was developed in response to feedback from the initial student cohort who reported feeling overwhelmed and underprepared following their first contact with the clients. A structured tutorial drawing on trauma-informed care (TIC) frameworks, self-regulation principles, vicarious trauma prevention, and scope-of-practice clarification was developed and integrated into subsequent pre-placement preparation curricula. This report describes the initiative, its theoretical grounding, delivery, and reported outcomes, and reflects on its applicability to comparable health professional education contexts.