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.

2011 Post Graduate Mental Health Nursing Students

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

All postgraduate mental health nurses undertaking their first year of study 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.

• We can help to link you up with a MENTOR.
• You are welcome to join our e-list - which is the primary mechanism by which members and non-member mental health nurses communicate with each other around a range of topics and areas of interest.
• Mid-2011 we will be expanding our CPD program and will hold a series of e-discussions, which will be facilitated over a 2 week period by experts in various specialty areas within the field.  

All you need to do is send us an email outlining your area of interest and we will attempt to link you with a clinical mentor who can provide support for you online (via email), by telephone or in person. Please send your email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it