The Transition from Mental Health Nursing Student to Registered Mental Health Nurse by Sam Terry

Sam Terry : Mental Health Nursing Student at University of Brighton

I am a second-year student mental health nurse about to embark on my final and for me the most crucial year of studying and placements. The course finishes with a longer placement to consolidate proficiency in therapeutic interventions, leading and managing care. Prior to this placement,  students often request a preferred practice area. How this is negotiated between the Student, University and Practice differs throughout the UK. The University of Brighton has recently changed the facility to request a first, second and third choice of final placement to one where students can request a pathway preference. This got me thinking about the transition into practice and how this may impact on myself and my peers.

Mental health nursing is a highly specialized field with many aspects to consider for a newly qualified nurse (Norman and Ryrie, 2018) such as different policies and procedures which vary from workplace to workplace and getting to know the team you are working with. Many newly qualified nurses talk of feeling ‘impostor syndrome’ meaning they don’t quite feel like a qualified registered nurse yet and quite often their expectations are very different to the realities of clinical practice (Stacey and Hardy, 2011).  One of the consequences of this is poor staff retention, and turnover rates have been found to be high for those in the first year of qualifying with 34% of graduates deciding not even to register (Health Education England, 2014).

Mental Health Nursing students develop skills of working autonomously throughout their training. We learn the importance of reflective practice, knowing ourselves and accountable decision making. Part of this being around our own learning and development. We need the University to support us to make choices for ourselves otherwise we can be at risk of feeling unprepared and in danger of failing as an effective mental health nurse.

Mental health nursing is complex, and each specialty is unique. Our training equips us to understand that learning is built, and relationships take time to become established. Being offered a first job in an area where you have had limited experience may mean the employer having a newly qualified mental health nurse who feels daunted and overwhelmed (Norman and Ryrie, 2018). After all, the responsibility and expectations of a first-year student is significantly different to that of a third-year final placement.

Placement areas need to be well resourced to identify learning opportunities, supervise and assess mental health nursing students practice. Unfortunately many are busy, understaffed and are unable to focus on the student experience. A final placement area that agrees to take a mental health nursing student who in turn has chosen to specialise in that specific area could increase the likelihood of both approaching the experience from a proactive position.  Learning and teaching opportunities could be offered with the explicit intention that they will positively prepare the student for employment.

As students we see how accountable, professional, registered mental health nurses offer value for service users and the mental health workforce. An important way of supporting students’ transition into practice is giving them the power to match up their final placement with their first job. An opportunity to get to know the team, to be fully orientated into the specialty and understand what to expect and what is expected of them before their professional autonomy becomes reality.

References

Health Education England, 2014, Commitment and growth: advancing mental health nursing now and for the future.

Available at:

https://www.hee.nhs.uk/sites

Norman, I.J. & Ryrie, I. 2018, The art and science of mental health nursing: principles and practice, Fourth edn, Open University Press, London.

Stacey, G. & Hardy, P. 2011, “Challenging the shock of reality through digital storytelling”, Nurse education in practice, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 159-164.