Centre for Mental Health Nursing
The Centre for Mental Health Nursing actively engages with the Victorian mental health nursing sector to strengthen MHN practices.
- The Collab Mental Health Nursing Conference
The Collab is back for its 24th year and tickets are now on sale. We are striving for an educational, fun, motivating two days of presentations, well-being activities and networking opportunities. 10 + 11 August 2023
- Thinking about Psychosis: Understandings that support recovery-oriented practice
A free online course that explores several explanatory frameworks for psychosis.
- Sensory modulation in mental health settings
A free online training package on using sensory modulation, especially in inpatient mental health settings.
Our mission
We are the Centre for Mental Health Nursing.
We advance the science and art of mental health nursing practice.
We build the capabilities of mental health nurses to co-create system and practice change in partnership with people with a lived experience of mental health service use, their families/carers and with other professions.
Meet the CentreMHN Team
The CentreMHN is a small team with establishment/core staffing, including a director, nurse academics, lead consumer academic, research assistant and an events and communications officer. The team is supplemented with casual staffing to meet requirements for additional consultancies and grants.
Consumer Academic Program
In 2019, the CPN was publicly recognised for the Consumer Academic Program (CAP), achieving (along with Tepou training New Zealand) a Mental Health Service of Australia and New Zealand Award in the category of Education, Training or Workforce Development for the achievement of excellence, innovation and best practice in mental health services.
Centre MHN workshops address the everyday priorities of mental health nursing, and reflect current research evidence. They’re designed to upskill the mental health nursing workforce in line with current practice challenges, legislation and policy directions.
Our training team comprises educators from both mental health nursing and lived-experience backgrounds, and workshops are delivered by at least two trainers so that both these perspectives are brought to the training room. Wherever possible, Centre MHN workshops are co-produced. This means they have been researched and developed in partnerships between mental health nursing academics and mental health consumer academics, in keeping with the Centre MHN’s commitment to embed both clinical and consumer perspectives in our training and research programs.
The Centre MHN offers the following training workshops delivered on-site, and at no charge, to each
Victorian Area Mental Health Service:
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Thinking about Psychosis: Understandings that support recovery-oriented practice
This course introduces several contemporary explanatory models of psychosis. These are models that are supportive of meaning-making and personal recovery. Written for novice clinicians but available for all.
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Dr Haley Peckham's Neuroplasticity Workshops
Dr Haley Peckham will be in Melbourne to Keynote at The Victorian Collaborative Mental Health Nursing Conference (The Collab) and will be available to hold face-to-face workshops for Mental Health Nurses at Victorian Area Mental Health Services.
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Sensory modulation in mental health settings
This course is a short introduction to using sensory modulation, especially in inpatient mental health settings.
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Introduction to the Mental Health Intensive Care Framework
A free, self-directed online introduction to Victoria’s Mental Health Intensive Care Framework.
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CentreMHN Clinical Supervision Masterclass
A clinical supervision development program designed to build the clinical supervision capabilities of mental health nurses.
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The Essentials of Supported Decision-Making In Practice
Practical ways for mental health workers to align everyday practice with the human rights principles that underpin supported decision-making
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Co-Production
Co-Production is a method of service delivery development that seeks to deliver better, more responsive services by prioritising the expertise of mental health consumers.
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Every Moment Counts
Practical ways to increase trust, communication & connection with consumers in acute settings, while balancing the demands of a busy ward environment.
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Action Learning Sets
A collaborative, group-based method for resolving complex issues. It supports critical thinking about nursing practice at both organisational and individual levels
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Working with people with a trauma history: how understanding neuro-plasticity can help
How research into the neuro-plastic properties of the brain sheds new light on human responses to complex relational trauma.
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Group Work Facilitation
An introduction to the theory and practice of group work, including an overview of the kinds of groups typically run for consumers in contemporary mental health settings.
The Collab
An annual conference showcasing the specialist practice of mental health nursing and its contribution to better outcomes for mental health consumers.
Victorian mental health nursing education and professional development forum (4s & 5s)
Facilitated by the CentreMHN, the 4s & 5s forum offers a space for MHNs in education and professional development roles to network, share knowledge, resources and innovations, and provide feedback on current priorities in MHN education, professional development, policy, research, and practice development.
Partner organisations
The CentreMHN works in collaborative partnerships with state government, industry bodies, research partners and area mental health services.
Governance
The Centre MHN was launched within the (then) Postgraduate School of Nursing, at the University of Melbourne in 1999.
Mental Health Nursing Workshops
A program of one-day workshops designed to upskill nurses in line with current practice innovations, challenges and policy directions.
Review Report 2017 - 2019
This 2017 - 2019 report charts CentreMHN's (formerly CPN) progress, as we build scholarly capacity among our nursing and consumer academics and collaboration with mental health services.
Recovery Library
An online respository of tools, case studies, reflection and research support of recovery-oriented practice.
Graduate Nurses
Mental health nursing is a wonderfully rewarding career and graduate mental health nurse programs often provide significant learning opportunities and support to new graduates.
Check out these tips for applying for Graduate Mental Nurse Programs in Victoria.
Co-production: Putting principles into practice into mental health contexts
This resource seeks to explain what co-production is, how it is important, how it is different to other participatory approaches, and specific considerations for mental health.
Consumer Perspective Supervision: A framework for supporting the consumer workforce
The Consumer Perspective Supervision project is a consumer-lead, co-produced project supported through a partnership.
Lived Wisdom on Panic and Worry (COVID-19 Blog Series)
CentreMHN Director Bridget Hamilton discusses the CentreMHN's Little Bag of Calm project to support in acute mental health wards during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CAP is unique in the Victorian landscape as a critical mass of consumer perspective thought leaders with a diverse range of expertise including research, education and training, management, governance and service delivery. With the guidance and expertise of a senior consumer academic, the CAP has been successful in attracting small grants, consultancies, and scholarships to support consumer academic development and roles beyond the CMHN business and attracting part-time team members and research training studentships. Members of the CAP are sought after by large multidisciplinary research teams as experts in the field locally, nationally and internationally.
CAP members bring rich experiential and scholarly perspectives to CMHN initiatives as well as the drive to make practical differences in mental health service delivery and workforce capability. As an example, CPN features co-produced training for the clinical workforce on Supported Decision Making (SDM), Co-production and making each connection with consumers matter (Every Moment Counts). The CAP showcases the discipline of consumer perspective through partnerships internal to the University such as the Social Equity Institute as well as with DHHS and VMIAC, for example in the development of the 
Consumer Perspective Supervision Framework. The CAP has monthly discipline meetings and supervision as well as mentorship and career development support from the CMHN Director.
Co-Production Putting Principles into practice into mental health contexts
Consumer Perspective Supervision: A framework for supporting the consumer workforce
The CentreMHN has a steady research presence in Victoria, centred on a translation/evidence to practice and program evaluation studies. The CentreMHN makes a distinctive contribution to mental health research locally and internationally with methods suited to clinician and consumer codesign.
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Publications
View the CentreMHN's academic research and published works.
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Our Safewards program of research
We hope to find new ways for the mental health system to think about violence, aggression and danger which promote equity and safety for both consumers and nurses.
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Evaluation of Clinical Supervision Implementation for Mental Health Nurses in Victoria, Australia
The Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System has recognised the importance of a skilled and capable mental health workforce in providing safe and high-quality care to consumers. As the role and scope of mental health nurses continue to grow and expand, clinical supervision is increasingly considered key support to contemporary nursing practice (Howard & Eddy-Imishue, 2020).
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FaCTORS – Factors Affecting CTOs Research Study
FACTORS is research project that is exploring the variation in rates of CTO’s across several Australian states and territories. We now form data gathered by health departments that there is great variation in the application of CTOs. Variation in use across services and across states.
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Research & Training
Research students contribute substantially to the strategic focus of the CentreMHN by researching aspects of practice that are important to consumers and nurses. At the same time, through research training and higher degree supervision, the CentreMHN is building research and evaluation capacity with nurses and consumer academics.
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Abolitionist perspectives in the context of mental health laws
The Mental Health Compulsory Treatment Criteria and Alignment of Decision Making Independent Review Panel approached the Centre’s Consumer Academic Program (CAP) to investigate and highlight the views and perspectives of people who advocate for the abolition of compulsory mental health treatment.
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Perceptions of Dangerousness
We hope to find new ways for the mental health system to think about violence, aggression and danger which promote equity and safety for both consumers and nurses.
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Evaluating Safewards Victoria
Safewards is a clinical model and intervention developed in the UK that seeks to reduce conflict and the use of seclusion and other restrictive interventions in acute inpatient psychiatric wards. Since 2014, researchers at the CPN have lead the evaluation of the Victorian government funded implementation of Safewards in the state of Victoria. The implementation of Safewards in Victoria is the most substantial and systematic in the world to date.
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Experiences of Engagement
PhD candidate Ms Rachel Tindall is conducting a qualitative longitudinal study of the experience of engagement in early psychosis services, for young people, carers and case managers.
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Views on seclusion and restraint, and ways to reduce their use
In this study, a large interdisciplinary team explored Australian views about a range of restrictive practices (seclusion, mechanical restraint, physical restraint, chemical restraint and emotional restraint), using a mixed methods approach funded by the National Mental Health Commission.