NURS20158 - Clinical Foundations for Practice
Unit Synopsis
Mental health nurses are registered nurses with the knowledge, skills, and experience to deliver ethical, culturally safe, recovery-oriented, and evidence-based care to diverse consumers, their families or carers, and the community. In this unit, you further appraise mental health nurses' scope of practice as active multidisciplinary team members who build therapeutic relationships, conduct assessments, co-develop recovery planning, support a range of evidence-based interventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of the outcomes achieved. In light of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Scope of Practice (2012) and Standards of Practice (2010), the National Practice Standards for the Mental Health Workforce (2013), you also interrogate the ethical and collaborative decision-making processes used to support diverse consumers and their families or carers to achieve optimal physical health and mental health recovery, according to the consumers' needs and preferences. Finally, you apply your learning in practice.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 8 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | 7 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
There are no pre-requisites for the unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Be Different Intakes
Higher Education Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Written Assessment | 50% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 50% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2019 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 23.53% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
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.
Source: Moodle
The unit coordinator was very approachable and relaxed and made the topics very relatable.
The importance of considering the ethics involved when delivering physical treatments continues to inform this unit.
Recommendation doesn't relate to item.
Source: Moodle
Information was relevant and really useful for my practice. It should be one of the first subjects offered for post grad mental health students. Rather than units that focus on repeating recovery essays. Lecturer was very easy to communicate with and prompt. Overall one of the best subjects I've done at this uni.
Continue utilising academics with update clinical knowledge and experience.
Recommendation doesn't relate to item.
Source: Moodle
I did like this subject I found it quite challenging and thought provoking
Continue use of coroners reports to provide substance upon which to reflect.
The use of a Coroner's report as a platform for an assessment has continued.
Source: Moodle
I enjoyed the way we were encouraged to consider ethical applications to our practice and to question what we know about mental health nursing interventions from other perspectives.
Ensure a high focus on the ethical domain surrounding lawful restraint and medication.
The focus on ethics and the inherent relationship between ethics and biological treatments in mental health continue to be a focus in this unit.
Source: Moodle feedback
I enjoyed the articles. I felt that the content was relevant to mental health nursing. The course facilitator appeared to be very passionate and I liked that as well.
Continue to have learning material that is directly relevant to the practicing mental health nurse.
In Progress
Source: Moodle feedback
The assessment piece on this unit was the most challenging of my course but was well outlined and the rubric helped a lot.
Recommend the continued inclusion of a relevant coroner's report to critique and reflect upon as an assessment item.
In Progress
Source: Moodle feedback
I really liked the assignment, I thought it was very interesting and a great way to learn about medications. It was probably more oriented to nurses working on inpatient units whereas I work in the community. Nevertheless, it was useful. I liked the voice feedback as well as the written feedback, though I am not sure how I can keep this on file. Is there a way to download the voice file?
Ensure that assessment items can be generalisable to the acute and community mental health settings. Continue to use 'voice' feedback.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Examine the work of mental health nurses in delivering ethical, culturally safe, recovery-oriented, and evidence-based care to diverse consumers, their families or carers, and the community.
- Appraise the scope of practice of mental health nurses as active multidisciplinary team members who build therapeutic relationships, conduct assessments, co-develop recovery planning, support a range of evidence-based interventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of the outcomes achieved.
- Critique the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Scope of Practice (2012) and Standards of Practice (2010), the National Practice Standards for the Mental Health Workforce (2013), and other key documents informing the clinical practice of mental health nurses.
- Interrogate the ethical and collaborative decision-making processes used to support diverse consumers and their families or carers to achieve optimal physical health, and mental health recovery, according to the consumers' needs and preferences.
- Apply your learning in practice.
Provisionally accredited with The Australian College of Mental Health Nurses (ACMHN).
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | • | • | • | ||
| 5 - Self-management | • | • | • | ||
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | • | • | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |