Mental health nursing is a specialised area of nursing that focuses on the care of people with mental health challenges. Nurses who work within the mental health care framework operate from a strengths-based approach to assist people in their recovery to emotional health and physical wellbeing. In this unit, you will learn about your nursing role in mental health care and recovery. You will develop your skills in establishing a therapeutic relationship in the clinical setting. You will apply the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) Registered nurse standards for practice (2016). You will continue to explore the importance of the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards (2017) to all nursing practice in Australia and use the Patient Safety Competency Framework (PSCF) (Levett-Jones et al., 2017) in your practice as a nursing student. You will be expected to identify risk and recognise and respond appropriately in the simulated and clinical environment. You will work within your scope of practice using the decision-making framework (DMF) (NMBA, 2020). You will participate in a compulsory two (2) day residential school prior to attending professional experience placement for this unit. This unit includes a 80 hour block professional experience placement in a mental health care setting. You must meet specific mandatory health, safety and security requirements to be eligible to attend each professional experience placement. Professional experience placements may be limited in your community and you may be placed in other locations. Please be prepared financially and personally to cover the costs to relocate for placements. Due to the limited availability of placements, some block placements have to start and/or end on dates that fall outside standard term dates.

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Feedback from SUTE

This was an exceptional unit both in the quality of teaching and the content. By far the most beneficial unit to my learning experience. Every aspect from the weekly content to the res school, assessment and placement was a powerful and needed insight into mental health nursing. It has forever changed my personal and professional mindset in the most positive ways. Thank you for giving me this learning opportunity!!!!

Unit Coordinators will continue to apply diverse teaching, learning and assessment philosophies and methods aligned with pedagogy, andragogy, Bloom's taxonomy framework, Benner's concept relating to stages of clinical competence and principles of equality, diversity and inclusion.

Feedback from 2-Day Residential Schools and SUTE

The learning material and residential school attached to this unit were valuable and well delivered. However, this unit is not enough to adequately prepare nurses to care for those with mental health concerns. I am disappointed that further content and written assessments were not included as part of learning for mental health. I believe this would have best been delivered as another unit. I am aware that post-graduate study is an option, but there are many nurses that will undertake this study and this will result in a lack of understanding and adequate care of patients that are suffering with mental illness. The small amount of time dedicated to mental health demonstrates that the university does not consider mental health to be a serious or worthwhile topic to educate their about. Unfortunately, this is reflected by the attitudes of nurses across the profession. It is unlikely to improve without a solid foundation of learning provided by universities throughout Australia.

Unit Coordinators will continue to develop and ensure the 2-Day Residential School and Moodle learning content, teaching and assessment methods are underpinned by current evidence-informed educationalist and mental health nursing theoretical knowledge and practice skills. The Bachelor of Nursing-Head of Course (BN-HOC)/School of Nursing & Midwifery executive will incorporate this feedback when planning and formulating the revised Bachelor Of Nursing (BN) degree curriculum.

Feedback from SUTE

[Unit Coordinator] was a fantastic facilitator and shared so openly his experiences with nursing. He checked in regularly while on placement and I felt very supported. He also contacted me once my placement was done to commend me on my feedback and ask me about my experience. I have never had this from any other university facilitator and it showed such wonderful personalisation and support.

Unit Coordinators will continue to apply evidence-informed diverse teaching, learning and assessment philosophies and methods that are person-centred/student-focused and culturally sensitive to enhance individual students’ motivation, commitment and ability to complete all the unit assessments and meet the set learning outcomes.