“Most nurs­es and mid­wives say they’ve had very min­i­mal for­mal edu­ca­tion about men­tal health prac­tice,” says Men­tal Health Nurse and CRANAplus Men­tal Health Emer­gen­cies Course Coor­di­na­tor, Aman­da North.

“Yet well over 50% of clin­i­cians are say­ing they’re see­ing peo­ple with men­tal health issues on a week­ly or fort­night­ly basis – in some cas­es even daily.”

Why under­take men­tal health train­ing as a nurse or health practitioner?

The most imme­di­ate ben­e­fit is the poten­tial to secure improved men­tal health out­comes for clients who present with acute men­tal ill­ness, severe dis­tress, and sub­stance or alco­hol use.

“It’s also about clients stay­ing con­fi­dent in their health ser­vice and stay­ing engaged across the board,” Aman­da says. 

“If peo­ple have a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence in men­tal health, they are more like­ly to engage in phys­i­cal, ongo­ing health care.”

Clin­i­cians them­selves can devel­op their abil­i­ty to set up a sol­id foun­da­tion for spe­cialised care and become well-round­ed generalists.

“Health prac­ti­tion­ers fin­ish the course feel­ing they can have a pos­i­tive impact on clients, and that men­tal health is not some­thing they have to dodge, avoid, or imme­di­ate­ly refer else­where,” Aman­da says.

“They can gain base­line skills and knowl­edge, so when they are com­mu­ni­cat­ing with spe­cial­ist teams or speak­ing to the Med­ical Offi­cer, they can feel more con­fi­dent in their assess­ment and deci­sion-mak­ing together.”

What skills does the MHE Course teach?

“The MHE course teach­es soft skills around client engage­ment, clin­i­cal skills around men­tal state exam­i­na­tion and risk assess­ment,” Aman­da says.

“It is about assess­ing clients when they’re pre­sent­ing, often in cri­sis. It’s most­ly acute-focused, but the skills can be used across the board to engage clients and talk about men­tal health issues.

“We use a Five Os Frame­work to pro­vide a struc­ture to help clin­i­cians when they maybe feel­ing out of their depth. We look at how to open­ly engage with the client, how to observe for signs of ill­ness, how to con­sid­er under­ly­ing med­ical issues, how to seek col­lat­er­al and/​or ask spe­cif­ic ques­tions and how to make refer­rals and organ­ise evacuations.”

Sce­nar­ios are tai­lored to remote prac­tice, and fac­tor in a lack of resources, a small­er team, and phys­i­cal distances.

“If a young per­son presents with sui­ci­dal thoughts, we don’t say you refer them to the child and youth team, or keep them in ED,” Aman­da explains.

“We make it about what can be achieved safe­ly with the avail­able resources – such as your assess­ment, engag­ing with fam­i­ly, organ­is­ing a safe­ty plan includ­ing per­haps a fol­low-up the next day. It’s about the best care for the client and that’s not always evacuation”

“Or to give anoth­er exam­ple, using com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills to encour­age the client to have a med­ica­tion rather than tak­ing a more assertive or restric­tive approach that may be avail­able in an urban ED.”

The con­ve­nience of online learning

The MHE Course is now avail­able in both face-to-face and online for­mats. Spots are still avail­able for two online cours­es this year, sched­uled from 18 July to 12 Sep­tem­ber, and 6 Octo­ber to 1 December.

“For the online course, the beau­ty is that there are oppor­tu­ni­ties to ask ques­tions and engage over an extend­ed peri­od,” says Amanda.

“If a case presents at work or you are not sure about the con­tent, there are plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to ask. It often emerges that pro­fes­sion­als are not alone in fac­ing challenges.”

The MHE Online Course is held over eight weeks and fea­tures three sched­uled Zoom ses­sions. Out­side of these ses­sions, clin­i­cians can com­plete the two hours of week­ly study at a time that suits them.

“For many remote area nurs­es, men­tal health train­ing is usu­al­ly not manda­to­ry,” Aman­da says in con­clu­sion, ​“but when an indi­vid­ual presents with a men­tal health emer­gency, it can be just as deci­sive as your phys­i­cal health train­ing. We know these are skills clin­i­cians need to use regularly.

“It is often up to the indi­vid­ual, or their clin­ic or employ­er, to recog­nise the impor­tance of this kind of train­ing and to gain men­tal health skills to pos­i­tive­ly impact their com­mu­ni­ty and gain the con­fi­dence that they’re fol­low­ing best practice.”