Find a Mental Health Nurse

Find Credentialed Mental Health Nurses throughout Australia by searching our Credentialed Mental Health Directory (last updated 24 Feb 2010).

Meet some Mental Health Nurses

There are almost 500 Credentialed Mental Health Nurses working across Australia. They work collaboratively with a range of other health professionals in diverse settings such as community health, consultation-liaison (in emergency departments and maternity services), private practice, primary health care, hospitals, forensic services and universities.

Read the extraordinary stories of some of these nurses.

Meet Sandy Shilling: 300th Credentialed Mental Health Nurse

I am basically a person who likes to see the bright side to people and things, who enjoys most days and loves to be with others and laugh. Much of my approach at work, home and socially is to be positive, see the good in others and encourage others to do likewise, to accept what is your lot in life, enjoy it and build on it. Throughout my working life I have worked in both hospital and community settings, have been involved in skills training programs and worked with young people in a behavioural modification program. I have learnt so much from others, learnt not to always “assume” and hopefully be able to offer something back.

In more recent years I have been in a rural community mental health setting, a great moved that showed how smaller communities are different to the suburbs. Everyone is known somehow or other, word gets around easily, there is less anonymity. Neighbours know your business and who visits you (especially it if is in a government plated car). To hopefully break down some of the barriers is important. People are just people, we all need to live together, be considerate of others and community standards. We need to accept and respect others and we need to be willing to seek and accept supports available to us and use them as stepping stones to get through difficult times and hopefully move in the direction we want.

November 2006 saw some big challenges for me. I had been in the same system since leaving school – only 30 years or so – after being in the public community health team for 16 years I made the decision to change. As part of that change I said my goodbyes, thankyous and received much positive feedback from the team I had been part of. One such goodbye saw me cheekily offering my services to the local GP service – unfortunately, at that time, no position was available. I even wrote to them with contact details if things were to change. Some 5 ½ months later that’s exactly what happened and in August 2007 I started with Kapunda Medical Practice for 2 days per week; by November I was up to 4 days. The move has been great; I have become a member of the team at the practice and referrals and ongoing follow-up continue at quite a pace. The opportunity to advance mental health with the doctors, practice nurses, medical students and administrative staff has been great.

To become credentialed, to be further acknowledged as a mental health nurse who is part of the team able to offer services to clients is most satisfying. To have people asking to be referred to me, to have the GPs valuing the services I offer is appreciated. I continue to have regular contact with the staff I have worked with in the past, I continue to build connections with the public mental health service and value the opportunities to continue to develop skills and knowledge, seek support and friendship. It is great to see funding being made available to other avenues to the benefit of our clients, to assist with seeking services and supports that may just make a difference. It would be good if these avenues continue to grow especially in the areas of support within the community in which people live. It may have been a bit of work getting my credentialing application in order, but keeping diaries for the last few years certainly helped. It was also good for me to see what I have been doing with my time – I know life is busy but sometimes we lose track of just what we have done. I hope I have the opportunity to continue to be of some use and maybe make a little bit of a difference.

Meet Brent Hayward

After working in acute adult inpatient psychiatric units and community rehabilitation for some time and completing postgraduate studies in mental health nursing, I was eager to move to community nursing when offered a position on the Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Service at The Alfred. This was perhaps the beginning of my affiliation with working with marginalised members of the community and a steep learning curve in the development of my mental health nursing skills. I began expanding the scope of my practice to include triage and secondary consultation while beginning my foray into the world of conference presenting and publication and embarking on higher degree study at the University of Melbourne.

I spent a short time working in a sexual health outreach service in male sex venues then moved to the Victorian Dual Disability Service at St Vincent’s Hospital where I worked as a Senior Clinician undertaking complex assessments of people with intellectual disabilities and mental disorder and began lecturing and tutoring at universities. It was around this time that the College began advertising the Credentialing for Practice Program. I saw Credentialing as an excellent way of having my education, skills, work experience and professional development recognised by my mental health nursing peers. I recently returned to The Alfred as a Clinical Nurse Educator where the focus of my practice has changed to the recruitment and retention of new graduate nurses, supporting and evaluating postgraduate students and facilitating an educational program for community mental health services.

The process of credentialing allowed me to reflect upon my professional experiences and to truly understand why I continue to work as a mental health nurse. While Credentialing requires voluntary and intrinsic motivation, it is itself a modality to ensuring that I remain an educationally prepared and competently developed mental health professional.

Meet Ah-Nya On: 200th Credentialed Mental Health Nurse

My earliest memory of a nurse is a sweet one – I won a lolly award from the primary school dental nurse! As a child the wonders of the world fascinated me…I dreamt of one day travelling the world so deciding on a career combining work with travel was relatively easy.

But I soon found out that the road to any quest is never without a cord of pain – leaving my sheltered life in tropical Malaysia I arrived in London in the cold winter of 1976. The place I now called “home” was the old “sick bay” that was sandwiched between two psychiatric wards at German Hospital in Dalston. Always a strong believer in quality improvement, I acted to improve my situation – I moved to The Runwell Psychiatric Hospital that was nestled in some three hundred acres of green pasture in Essex, and it was here that my nursing career started.

So, how did I come to be in the Continuing Care Team in Mid West Area Mental Health Service? Some twenty years ago I visited Australia and fell in love with it. Upon returning to Malaysia, I convinced my husband Min that Melbourne was the place to be. Not only did I manage to get Min and our family to Melbourne two years later, I also “converted” him into a mental health nurse!

Thirty-two years after first starting out as a mental health nurse, and having worked as manager and clinician across many services and settings, I am proud to be the 200th Credentialed Mental Health Nurse.

I am really excited about the future of mental health nursing and feel that there are so many more opportunities for nurses now in comparison to yesteryears. The expansion of roles and the extension of practice are a couple of areas that contemporary nurses can apply themselves. I have always found mental health nursing to be an exciting and rewarding profession. I feel we are privileged to hear the inside stories of people’s lives and have the knowledge and skills to support, educate and nurture people through difficult times and illnesses, as well as promoting their wellbeing.

I believe the credentialing process emphasises the maintenance of high standards of professional development and supervision and I would encourage all nurses to seek credentialing. For me, the credentialing process is a way of ensuring nursing is respected as a progressive profession that self regulates to maintain standards, and it can only further enhance the professional stance of mental health nursing.

As for my dream of travelling the world, I’m off to climb the Great Wall for the third time next month!

Meet Carol Martin: First Credentialed MHN in the Illawarra

I began my Psychiatric Nurse training in 1967 at North Ryde and since then I have been employed in community, inpatient, patient flow, education, Project Officer and Nurse Unit Manager positions.

Like many others I have experienced and been part of the political, economic and knowledge changes that have influenced the care and treatment we deliver to our clients, their families and carers. I have also seen the emergence of mental health nurses as a professional group and an acknowledged speciality field of nursing.

I had heard about credentialing and while attending an ANZCMHN International Conference in New Zealand many years ago registered to attend a Jon Chesterson workshop to understand more about the process. During the workshop I was excited at the prospect that mental health nurses now had the opportunity, similar to other disciplines, to formally demonstrate and capture the experience and skills they had developed as mental health professionals. The Tasmanian experience had provided a beacon for fellow travellers.

I became the first credentialed nurse in the Illawarra Region and at the same time aware that my illegible diary entries had made a simple task of completing the application form – rather than a frustrating memory challenge and time consuming paper chase. Three years later my reapplication was completed almost angst free!

I am the secretary of the Illawarra Sub-branch of the ACMHN and have been appointed as the coordinator of The Specialist Mental Health Service for Older People (SMHSOP). This new service has been established within the SESIAHS to provide clients over 65 years of age with mental health disorders access to a comprehensive range of services that address their needs. The service in the Illawarra includes community sites at Coniston and Nowra and a soon to be completed 14 bed inpatient unit within The Wollongong Hospital. As we recruit for nurses to join our expanding service I am proud to say that in our position description under ‘Desirable Criteria’ are the words “Credentialed Mental Health Nurse”.