More than 1200 people are employed by NorthWestern Mental Health to deliver a broad and integrated range of mental health services to young people, adults and the elderly with a serious mental illness. That means we have more expert clinicians and educators to support you.

NorthWestern Mental Health is committed to operating as a specialist program throughout the northern and western regions of Melbourne and will continue to ensure the best service to the community. This includes a continuing process of workforce development for the largest employee group, the psychiatric nurses.

NorthWestern Mental Health is committed to major investment in our nursing workforce through a number of strategies:

Succession Planning
Victoria has no direct entry psychiatric nursing programs due to the promotion of the comprehensive Registered Nurse model. As a result, we have Graduate Programs as the entry point for the Registered Nurse as well as the Post Graduate Diploma stream for psychiatric nursing leading to professional endorsement.

Recruitment and Retention
The retention of our existing psychiatric nursing workforce, the recruitment of nurses not currently employed in mental health, and recruitment from interstate and overseas consist of the main strategies employed. The latter has seen the recruitment of over 190 overseas psychiatric nurses over four years with many currently occupying senior positions in our service.

Professionalism to credential the psychiatric nursing workforce and 'fitness for practice' by:

• Promoting the professional requirements for specialist psychiatric nursing.
• Ensuring all practicing nurses are registered with the Nurse Board of Victoria.
• Adherence to codes of conduct and ethics (ANCI) and standards from ANZCMHN.

Education and Research to establish an approach for education and research within NWMH through:

• The development of a research platform for psychiatric nursing.
• The introduction of research into psychiatric nursing practice using evidence based
  practice such as TRIP, Expert Consensus Guidelines.
• The completion of a ongoing training needs analysis for nursing.
• Promotion of NWMH training opportunities.
• Effective links with the CPNRP including Clinical Fellowships/NDU.

Clinical Practice to establish initiatives that promote clinical practice initiatives for nursing:

• To develop a lead approach to Management of Clinical Aggression.
• To provide contemporary clinical advice on clinical governance issues such as medication.
• To establish a approach to professional clinical supervision.
• To promote an educational environment through preceptorship programs.
• To develop an approach for NWMH in relation to the Nurse Practitioner Project.