Reflecting and developing our professional roles -looking after consumers, carers and our workforce We developed a Victorian Clinical Supervision Framework and this is our story.
Ms Kate Thwaites1
1Office Of The Chief Mental Health Nurse, Melbourne, Australia
Reflecting and developing our professional roles -looking after consumers, carers and our workforce – we needed a strategy to nurture the nursing workforce. In Victoria we developed a Clinical Supervision Framework and this is our story so far…..
The Victorian Chief Mental Health Nurse Anna Love decided to develop a framework for clinical
Supervision. Victoria’s Chief Mental Health Nurse provides leadership and promotes collaboration
between the Department of Health and Human Services and the mental health nursing profession.
The 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 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, to promote continuous improvement in client outcomes.
The Chief Mental Health Nurse represents the profession at all levels of government 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.
We recognised the support needs for nurses to have a regular safe space to reflect on practice, as part of their professional development and career structure.
Importantly, an implementation and sustainability plan to support ongoing leadership within
Services has also been developed.
Biography:
Kate Thwaites is a mental health nurse working as a clinical advisor in the Victorian Office of the Chief Psychiatrist & Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse. This work also encompasses her role in nursing leadership, lived experience co-design and projects with the Victorian Office of the Chief Mental Health Nurse.
Kate’s professional vision is a compassionate health care system which provides evidence based care, nurtures, values and develops clinical staff.
Kate has worked across many public health care services including general medicine, surgical and mental health units in roles of enrolled nurse, registered nurse, mental health nurse and nurse unit manager. Kate has specialised in aged persons mental health, delirium support and education across the wider service system in the Northern Territory with Top End Mental Health, Eastern Health, Monash and Alfred Health before moving into the Department of Health and Human Services.
