Supporting Postgraduate Mental Health Nursing Students

The ACMHN is committed to providing support from the profession to postgraduate mental health nursing students. In 2009 the Department of Health & Ageing funded the Mental Health Nursing Student Online Support (MHN SOS) project, which provided very specific support (i.e. purely online - through discussion forums and instant chat) to recipients of the Australian Government Postgraduate Mental Health Nursing Scholarships. This project provided scholarship recipients with the opportunity to engage 1:1 with a mental health nurse mentor, and to participate in the community of practice discussion forum. The project was a great success given the timeframes and the restrictions on how mentors and mentees might communicate (i.e. purely online). 

Learnings from the project included: 

1.    A significant cohort of mentees benefited from the support of the project and felt it helped them remain engaged in their studies. 
2.    Mentees who engaged quickly and early with their mentors found the program to be of enormous benefit; those who were hindered by time and technology found the program frustrating and never really felt they connected with their mentor.
3.    Mentors enjoyed the opportunity to share their skills, knowledge and experience with the mentees and felt that they were helping to bring on the next generation of nurses.
4.    Mentors and mentees were of mature age.  This reflects the demographics of the workforce. 
5.    Difficulties using technology and finding mutually acceptable times to contact each other were identified as problems.
6.    Both mentors and mentees would have preferred to have more flexibility in relation to how they contacted each other – i.e. via telephone (most commonly requested), email, video-link (skype) – particularly in the early stages when the relationship.

Providing Support in 2010 and beyond

The ACMHN is delighted to welcome 2010 postgraduate mental health nursing students to the Mental Health Community of Practice!

We learnt alot from the 2009 project and we can now offer a program that is more flexible and hopefully will meet the needs of postgraduate mental health nursing students, as well as providing a satisfying role for mental health nurses who want to share their knowledge and experience in the clinical field.

All postgraduate mental health nurses undertaking their first year of study in 2010 are welcome to participate. It doesn't matter if you have been working in mental health for years, or whether you are just taking your first steps into the profession, the support of other clinicians and students is an invaluable resource and one which the ACMHN believes is essential to the development and evolution of the profession.

All you need to do is register with the Community of Practice using a username and password of your choice. You will then navigate your way to the Main Discussion Board and select the 2010 Student Online Support discussion forum.

You will be able to post topics, join in the discussion and hook up with an individual mentor if you so desire. You and your mentor will then work out how you'd prefer to make contact with each other. 

LOGIN & REGISTER HERE