About the Chief Mental Health Nurse
Victoria's Chief Mental Health Nurse provides leadership and promotes collaboration between the Department of Health and the mental health nursing profession.
The Chief Mental Health Nurse represents the profession at all levels of government and across all health service sectors, and promotes recognition of the mental health nursing profession.
The position has a focus on education and training initiatives, promoting best practice standards, workforce planning and development, and professional leadership.
Victoria’s Chief Mental Health Nurse is Anna Love.
Role and functions
The functions of the Chief Mental Health Nurse are to:
- provide mental health nursing leadership and advice to government and the public and private health and education sectors
- undertake initiatives to support and enhance mental health nursing practice
- represent mental health nursing on a range of advisory and reference groups both within and external to the Department of Health and Human Services, at state and national levels
- support the delivery of clinical quality and safety within our funded services.
Learn more
Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse
View more View lessThe Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse provides leadership to, and advocacy for, consumers, the mental health sector and mental health nurses. The Office drives best practice to deliver positive and recovery-focused outcomes for consumers who access Victorian mental health services.
The Office aims to improve the experience of care for consumers and their family and carers by supporting quality improvement and encouraging the uptake of best-practice approaches to care in services. Our activities support a range of mental health reform initiatives in Victoria, including the implementation of the Mental Health Act 2014 and Victorian Government priorities for recovery-oriented practice, as well as safety and reducing restrictive practices.
The Office provides practice leadership and evidence-informed directions and recommendations for mental health nursing practice, policy and service design that has an impact on the workforce, at the to promote continuous improvement in client outcomes.
The Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse is part of the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist within the Department of Health.
Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022
View more View lessVictoria's Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 is a key element to the government's mental health reform agenda, and places individuals and carers at the centre of mental health treatment and care.
Best practice
View more View lessMental Health Intensive Care Framework
The Mental Health Intensive Care Framework identifies and highlights key contemporary and best practice principles that are vital for mental health practice.
Read the Mental Health Intensive Care Framework
Addiction Medicine Skills in Emergency Departments
This research project was part of the Ice Action Plan. It examined practices in EDs with a view to enhancing staff skills in working with Ice affected individuals.
Read the research project report
Research on Collaborative Handover
This resource has been developed to support best practice in the transfer of care between nursing shifts within the mental health adult acute inpatient setting
Community mental health nursing
The Community Mental Health Nurse – Transition to Speciality Practice Competency Framework aims to support mental health nurses transitioning to community positions through a 12 month competency based program. It is comprised of manuals for the Facilitator and a Participants manual.
Centre for Psychiatric Nursing
The Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse funds the University of Melbourne Centre for Psychiatric Nursing to provide education, professional development and research related to psychiatric nursing practice, with the aim of facilitating and overseeing changes in nursing practice in order to improve health outcomes for people using mental health services.
Centre for Psychiatric Nursing
Gender-sensitive training
Mental health providers must provide a safe and supportive environment for individuals accessing their services. The Gender Sensitivity and Safety Project, delivered by the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing, embeds gender-sensitive training in public inpatient mental health settings in Victoria. A 'train-the-trainer' package equips key staff in adult mental health services with the knowledge and skills to deliver training to their peers.
Foundation Skills in Child and Youth Mental Health Service Nursing
This course provides nurses working in child and youth mental health inpatient units with skills in engagement and reflective practice. This training is being rolled out in all acute child and adolescent inpatient settings in Victoria.
Working with the suicidal person - Clinical guidelines
These clinical guidelines help healthcare professionals working in Victorian emergency mental health services understand how to improve the assessment and management of people with suicidal behaviours.
Nursing observation through engagement in psychiatric inpatient care
Guidance to mental health services in developing local policies and procedures with respect to nursing observation of people receiving care in inpatient mental health facilities.
Working with people prescribed and undergoing electroconvulsive therapy
Nursing practice: working with people prescribed and undergoing electroconvulsive therapy provides clinical guidance and information about the nursing care of people undergoing electroconvulsive therapy in public services and private licensed premises in Victoria. Services should develop or revise local policies and procedures consistent with the Electroconvulsive therapy manual (2009) and this guideline to promote the provision of effective nursing care to people undergoing ECT.
Reducing restrictive interventions
View more View lessRestrictive Interventions in Victorian Emergency Departments: a review of current clinical practice
Evaluation report summarises the Emergency department presentations in five hospitals over 2016, the Code Greys that occurred in those departments and the restrictive interventions used on patients. The Alfred, Ballarat, Dandenong, Geelong and Royal Melbourne hospitals were chosen to represent the Emergency department management of highly agitated patients and the interventions required.
Restrictive Interventions in Victorian Emergency Departments
Use of Restrictive practices on males released from prison and entering acute mental health services
Report of research that sought to understand the use of restrictive interventions for male consumers admitted to inpatient mental health settings who have recently experienced a period of imprisonment. The research also reviewed the pathway of males - prior, during and following imprisonment and determine the impact of recent imprisonment on the subsequent use of restrictive interventions on admission to acute mental health inpatient units.
Use of Restrictive practices on males released from prison and entering acute mental health services
Forensic Mental Health Restrictive Intervention Benchmark Project
Report on a research project to develop suitable restrictive intervention benchmarks, based on a consensus from a group of experts within the field that will assist services to reduce the use of restrictive interventions across Forensic Mental Health Services in the states and territories of Australia and in the five regional FMHS in New Zealand. This study will assist Victoria to lead the way in establishing performance goals for forensic services to improve service performance and quality, and effect practice change.
Forensic Mental Health Restrictive Intervention Benchmark Project
Victoria's framework for reducing restrictive interventions
Providing a safe environment for all: framework for reducing restrictive interventions helps health services to comply with mental health reform objectives and the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. The framework guides services to develop local responses to reduce the use of restrictive interventions through a culture of safety and recovery.
- Framework for reducing restrictive interventions
- Reducing restrictive interventions: literature review and document analysis (2013)
- Restrictive interventions in designated mental health services - Chief Psychiatrist guideline
- Practice of prone restraint: Chief Psychiatrist clinical practice advisory notice
Reducing restrictive interventions initiative
This statewide initiative supports mental health services to work towards reducing and, where possible, eliminating the use of restrictive practices. Every mental health service across Victoria has participated in developing local action plans (LAPs) for reducing incidences of restrictive interventions. LAPs employ a range of strategies, including workforce development, enhanced consumer and carer participation, strengthened clinical governance, innovative therapeutic interventions and sensory modulation.
Safewards
Safewards is a highly effective model in reducing conflict and containment, and increasing a sense of safety and mutual support for staff and patients. The Chief Mental Health Nurse has established a Safewards team to help public mental health units across Victoria to implement Safewards.
Find out more about Safewards
Creating Safety online training
A comprehensive training program Creating Safety has been developed to help Victoria’s mental health services reduce, and where possible eliminate, the use of restraint and seclusion practices in adult acute inpatient units.
