Previewing the upcoming 47th International Mental Health Nursing Conference

Oliver: 0:16

Welcome everybody to the digital dose. This is our third episode and this is coming to you of the week of the 47th International Mental Health Nursing Conference down in Melbourne. So we thought being that we're going to be there and we want to catch up with as many of you guys as possible and maybe record a couple of episodes in the process, we quickly go through and have a look through what's on offer for these upcoming sessions and, as usual, I have Professor Rhonda Wilson with me here.

Rhonda: 0:49

Hi Oliver, we can't wait for a conference. Oliver's laughing at me. I don't know why You're going to get used to us listeners. As you know, we emble our way through this podcast and we are very real people. But we are so excited about heading to Melbourne and heading to the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses 47th International Conference. I mean, wow, that is phenomenal 47 years of conference about mental health nursing in Australia. That's phenomenal. And we're really excited because we're both based at the University of Newcastle School of Nursing and Midwifery and we have about 20 presentations 20 plus presentations we're giving at this conference. So we've got a large tune coming down with us and so we're very, very excited to be just giving you some headlines about some of the things that you can expect to hear about at this conference and, of course, in our show notes that with this podcast, we'll make sure we give you all the details about how to follow the conference online, all their hashtags for social media, and make sure that we give you the whole program as well so you can follow along at least on social media.

Rhonda: 2:17

But if you're in Melbourne and you can get there and your mental health nurse or you're a person with lived experience of a mental health condition and you've got the week free. Please drop in. I'm sure you'll be able to pick up a day registration. So day one kicks off with some exciting keynote speakers, but one of the things that we're kind of interested in is the panel session in the Arthur Street Auditorium. It's about a PhD panel and there are a few people who are in this panel and Oliver and I will be there and Anthony Mullen, one of our Sessionals, mental Health Nursing staff at University of Newcastle and a senior mental health nurse at Hunter, new England Mental Health, new South Wales Health as well. So Anthony and Oliver, both doing PhDs, and I'm supervising PhDs. A couple of other panelists as well Professor Kim Foster and Rachel.

Oliver: 3:33

Sabrakas, I'm sure that we missed her.

Rhonda: 3:37

We're going to ask her so that we can say her name and we'll learn that properly, but we're looking forward to meeting you, rachel, if you're listening and hearing about what your PhD is about as well- I'm really looking forward to this panel.

Oliver: 3:50

I think starting out my own PhD journey was a bit kind of rough and you know there's a few things that you know. One reflection could have been done in alternate ways, but I know that I'm constantly asked about doing PhD as a nurse because it seems such a you know, not a normal progression for a lot of people. But it would be great to actually give people some ideas that it's doable, it's obtainable and what it's like to actually be a researcher. Think of yourself a researcher.

Rhonda: 4:24

Well, it's been just fabulous, you know, because I've had the absolute delight of watching you emerge as a mental health nursing scientist here. You've been an experienced mental health nurse and a computing scientist, and now you're a mental health nursing scientist, and a really well published one as well. You've got a number of papers under your belt already and you're heading towards a finish line for your PhD. So it's exciting times and you've learnt, you know, a lot about along the way.

Oliver: 4:55

Yeah really honest. I think the big thing there is, personally, like, if I can achieve this, anybody can achieve this. It's just about the work and getting the work done and, I guess, learning how to do that work, but actually having the support and laying it out and just getting in there and whilst we say, yeah, well published. We've had quite a few publications. There's a lot of work behind them, but it's doable.

Rhonda: 5:21

And you know.

Oliver: 5:22

I never thought I'd ever be a published author, let alone a first thing, let alone two. I just want to see Higgins et al, and I've seen that quite a few times now. So you know it's very doable for everyone. It's part of finding you know what's what's important for you and how. You've got a way to address some of the problems that that you see in your practice, and it'd be great.

Rhonda: 5:45

So come along to that one.

Oliver: 5:47

We know that lots of people have requested. It's part of the reason why it's actually put on for this conference.

Rhonda: 5:50

So it's going to be exciting. Yeah, what else we got up next? We've got. We're just cherry picking the bits out that we're really interested in. I mean, this program is jam packed with amazing papers from amazing people all over the country and beyond. We've oh look, there's keynote speaker Professor Nicholas Proctor. Now, I've done a lot of work with Nicholas over the years and we've we've written a textbook together Mental Health, a person-centered approach.

Oliver: 6:24

Well, make sure we stick that in the show notes so that you can copy of that at home.

Rhonda: 6:27

So you've got a copy of that at home. I do. It's got coffee marks on it, yes, where you've read it thoroughly.

Oliver: 6:32

It's all doggy, you know little tabs?

Rhonda: 6:36

Yeah, no, it's. We're in our third edition and I am really excited about that, that textbook that we've produced with Cambridge University Press. But Nicholas, of course, has done some incredible work in terms of asylum seekers and detention, you know, and supporting with mental health, nursing people who are asylum seekers and in detention centers. He's been a very strong advocate and and he works a lot with suicide prevention. So you know he's learned a lot of stuff over the over the years and it'll be great to hear his keynote.

Oliver: 7:18

I've also got a discussion session afterwards, so I think I'll get your questions ready, because I say there'll be a fair few people wanting to.

Rhonda: 7:25

I think so, yeah, absolutely. What are we on then in the evening? See, the really great thing about this conference is that there is an oration and an invest just ceremony there's. There's all kinds of exciting things, program things that happen in this conference. Oration is is really just a very special lecture that honors a esteemed mental health nurse, and we we invite an esteemed mental health nurse every year, and this year we've got Professor Emma Muir Cochran. And Professor Muir Cochran has been in leadership positions in mental health nursing in Australia and other parts of the world for many, many years and I'm sure that her oration will be really worth listening to.

Oliver: 8:24

I'll be looking forward to that one. I know the name of. Never actually had the opportunity to either meet her or hero. So looking forward to that one, yeah, no it should be good.

Rhonda: 8:33

And then, to top that off, we've got the welcome reception afterwards, which I think probably means a glass of bubbles, as mental health nursing conferences tend to end the day with. Then day two. Oh, I can't wait for this one keynote speaker, matthew Ball. Now, matt is a mental health nurse, practitioner and psychotherapist and he's the founder and director of the Humane Clinic, a private practice specialising in psychotherapy with individuals experiencing psychosis, hearing voices, suicidal narratives and emotional distress. You know, matt is an amazing mental health nurse and has his own lived experience, and he talks quite freely about that as well. And there's a discussion session with Matt after his keynote. Oliver, are you going to be lining up to catch up with?

Oliver: 9:30

Yeah, I'm just going to say you know you've known me long enough now that I don't get excited about a lot of things very quickly, but this was the one. When I heard that Matthew was presenting, I came very excited saying, yeah, he's coming. He's coming Because he's somebody that I followed his work and I really want to listen to and get the opportunity to actually, you know, have a chat with him, and especially around understanding his practice and his relationship with lived experience. I think there is so much that we can learn from him and, by all accounts, he's so open to sharing these things and we grow. We grow as clinicians, we grow as people when we have opportunities like that. So I'm, you know, very looking forward to that one.

Rhonda: 10:14

Yeah, I know that's going to be pretty cool. Now I'm pretty excited about the session after morning tea masterclass. I'm going to share one about yarning about cultural safety and for me as a descendant of the world tree people, first Nations, mental health is really really important and an area that I really want to see make a lot more progress, and so I'm really really pleased that the Australian College of Mental Health, nursing the scientific team for this conference, has prioritized a yarn about cultural safety. I think that is so important if we are going to manage in this country to close the gap and improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and social emotional wellbeing. It's an absolute priority and this yarn, I think, is going to be really exciting. I'm sure we're going to be tackling some pretty challenging topics. I'm going to be chairing this one and some really cool panellists Dr Luke Malloy from University of Oolongol he did his PhD looking at mental health and Indigenous populations, so he's a fantastic ally and then Adrian Lipscomb and PhD student of mine, katrina Ward, all the way from Brawarana out West New South Wales oh my goodness, she's amazing and she will pretty much say how it is. So listen up for her. She's always got a good yarn. Shabon Sharp is going to join me with us as well, and old colleague of mine from my Gundawindi days when I used to work in mental health and drug and alcohol nursing in Gundawindi in Queensland, australia Charmaine Mullins Charmaine and I used to work there and Charmaine is an amazing mental health nurse and Aboriginal woman and I'm just so pleased that she's going to be part of that panel. So really looking forward to having a very rich discussion, really robust discussion, about what mental health nursing can do to better support the social emotional wellbeing of First Nations people in Australia.

Rhonda: 12:58

And then we've got if you decide not to come to the Yarnabout Cultural Safety, then try and pop in to see Bernie Solomon. Now Bernie Solomon and I've done a bit of work as well. Bernie's over in New Zealand. We did some work together at Massey University and we've written a few chapters, book chapters, and she's a co-author on a poster that I'm first author on. You'll be able to see that in the exhibition space, that poster. But here she's going to be talking about building psychological safe spaces in mental health and teaching undergraduate nurses to develop recovery-orientated practice. So, knowing Bernie, that is going to be a top notch presentation and urge you to think about heading over to that one as well. Loads of more really fabulous presentations and topics. Get online and have a look. What have we got next?

Oliver: 14:02

Mike Hazleton.

Rhonda: 14:03

Oh, mike Hazleton. Professor Mike Hazleton, yeah, so he's doing this deep dive. Deep dives not quite a masterclass, not quite a panel, but it's kind of this double length session to really explore something at his topic area in depth. And he's going to talk about a prototype called Angry Stan that assists with conflict resolution simulation for undergraduate mental health nursing education. So Professor Mike Hazleton, of course, is the president of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, or the immediate past president. He will be by then, but presiding, if you like, over the conference, and he's a con joint professor at the University of Newcastle and we are just thrilled to have him.

Oliver: 15:03

I'm a bit torn. They're looking at that program. I'm going to go to Mike's one there, but I noticed here that Alicia Johnson, our health related knowledge, attitudes of practice of the individual experience in mental health illness system and every view. You know that one of my other passion projects is oral health and mental health and to see someone else that's actually doing some work there. I need to talk about the very least if not, I attend that one.

Rhonda: 15:27

So, alicia, all of us going to be looking at you at conference to have a bit of a chat, because I know he's got some work going on in that area as well. Yeah, you're going to be torn with that one.

Oliver: 15:38

I know what a good place to be.

Rhonda: 15:42

Now, if you are, you're going to have trouble here because the next, the next sessions, oliver and I are actually competing in different sections, so it is a competition, yeah it is. It is a competition for headcount.

Oliver: 15:58

We'll have independent people around just to make sure that the numbers are are legit. So I highly advise coming to my presentation characters of people seeking mental health care and emergency departments, identifying gaps in service delivery as opposed to priority, pedagogy privilege, the decolonisation of mental health nursing curriculum. Actually, that's probably pretty important.

Rhonda: 16:23

They're both pretty important topics. I think, yeah, and you know we've we've got some worthy opponents in in the other streams as well with some of the things they're they're presenting as well. But yeah, what have we got up next?

Oliver: 16:44

You. Oh, me again, Me again Well this is both of us, isn't it?

Rhonda: 16:48

We're both doing this one. Oh, this is our favourite session, this one.

Oliver: 16:52

This is 4C Digital Mental Health Nursing yeah, so we've got we're presenting I think, three of the five in there yeah, so of course, we have Heidi, who we're looking forward to meet, heidi Sturck with her work around utilising digital mental health options, as well as you're presenting there about AI, mental health nursing, about chat, gpt in the clinical component, which is similar to what we actually just talked about in recent episode. My one here about artificial intelligence and nursing trustworthy or reliable.

Oliver: 17:27

Trust this is a massive, massive topic and you know it's. I need a deep dive session really to go into it at any length, but it's a great starting point, this particular conversation. I'm happy to talk about you to anybody else who wants to listen.

Rhonda: 17:43

Can you trust the AI? Ask Oliver Higgins at conference. And then we're going to present our work around portable digital sensory rooms, unleashing technological precision to address emotional dysregulation, de-escalation, distress and discomfort. But we are also we can't wait to meet Paula Matheson as well, who's going to be coming from regional Victorian community mental health nurses telling us about the understanding of those nurses and experiences of AI mental health interventions and that work is going to be pivotal going forward.

Oliver: 18:24

I know there's some already in our area on. Interfales that are exploring that and it's as we move forward. The components we're talking about, trust and the way we engage in all these things are going to be so pivotal as we go to using the mental health tools. But I noticed in the concurrent session there we've actually got Katrina. We do Katrina.

Rhonda: 18:44

Ward, first Nations woman keeping well, promoting social, emotional wellbeing, support sense based to support sense based emotional regulation of First Nations people. So that's a big day for our lab. We'll need our afternoon members forum time for putting our feet up, I think, but then that evening we've got the conference dinner. Every mental health nurse loves a good conference dinner and a bit of a ball, and I do hear that this one is going to be something quite special Paul.

Oliver: 19:23

It sounds pretty good. I'm looking forward to it. Last year was good, but I think you know it sounds pretty good. It's getting warmed up.

Rhonda: 19:30

Yep. So the lab's going to be there in force and I think we're going to get Liz Hove on the dance floor. That's the goal. Then the next day we've got Liz Hove If she hasn't danced a little hard out from her, you know yeah, that's right Strictly boring Strictly boring and she's going to be talking about nursing care for combined mental health and substance use disorders a case study methodology.

Rhonda: 20:00

So that's going to be some of her PhD work and so important mental health and drug and alcohol substance use disorders. You know we still have that problem where they're still in silos and we're still, all these years later still trying to sort that one out. Well, this has got some, some tips around ways forward there, but concurrently, Mark Hopwick.

Oliver: 20:25

So Mark's another one of our lab cohorts working in the mental health space and he's looking at the Australian pre-registration mental health nursing curriculum. Inclusion of gender and sexuality in integrative literature review. His topic is just huge, it's massive. It's massive and you know whenever I don't know his work to the depth that he does, but even when I speak with people about it there is so much to happen and like, explore and in that space. So the work that he's doing is fantastic. I actually looking forward to going to see Mark's one. I'm torn between Liz and Mark, but you know, this is a tough one.

Rhonda: 21:06

Then later that day after lunch, we've got Anthony Mullen, one of our sessionals and sessional lecturers in the Master of Mental Health Nursing program at our university, and he's going to talk about providing mental health consumers with access to their mobile phone while in hospital Such an important topic.

Oliver: 21:29

Especially with digital health and animal health. I know you know there's been a lot of work to to give that right back to people, so I'll be really I haven't actually talked to Anthony about his work so understanding where it's at and what's happening and how we can address that, especially as we move forward with the various digital health tools that are on offer, then people can. It's going to be great. I'm looking forward to that one.

Rhonda: 21:55

Yep, no, that's going to be really important. Then we've got Fiona Little. Now she's one of our staff members as well and she's doing a PhD with us and she's her primary supervisor as Professor Michael Hazelton as well, and she's going to be talking about unleashing the potential of thriving at work to improve job satisfaction in mental health nursing. I just love the work Fiona's doing. It is such a boost, such an encouragement to mental health nurses. So if you're feeling the pinch a bit in the mental health nursing context, then get along and see Fiona's presentation, because you walk out of that feeling like gold. And then a concurrent one is one of our seasonal staff in the Master of Mental Health Nursing, narosha Kodikara, and she's going to talk about working together with law enforcement agencies for better outcomes for the consumers, and Narosha is an amazing clinician. I'd love you to hear her. Then, a bit later in the afternoon, alison Hansen, another one of Michael Hazelton's PhD students, understanding women secluded in forensic mental health settings a retrospective study. So I'm looking forward to see Alison's as well.

Oliver: 23:21

That'd be so interesting. The complexity of.

Rhonda: 23:25

Then we're going to wrap up the conference with a final discussion panel and we're going to take a look at positive future focus for mental health nursing and leave on a positive note. And there's Professor John Hurley is going to moderate that session. And then there are a number of panelists Monica Taylor, nathan Dart, our interim or acting president of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses, and the Council of Branches, chair Matt Ireland, professor Kim Foster and yours truly Ronda Wilson is going to put her two cents worth in there as well. And if that's not enough, we sign off on that conference with the choir of Hard Knocks performance.

Oliver: 24:19

And that's going to be so good. What a way to end. I've seen them before. It's been phenomenal. You see them at the Christmas stuff, with the Ontalian stuff, like that. They have amazing work, just amazing.

Rhonda: 24:36

So to just end on that high, it's going to be fantastic, it's going to be really good, and then after that they're going to tell us where the next conference is next year so we get to look forward to the next one in 2024. So we'll hear the news on where the next one will be.

Oliver: 24:53

It's pretty packed few days. I think this is the. For me it's one of the most jam packed ones, not only in presentation but actually going. Oh, I want to see that, I want to see that, I want to see that there's something going on constantly which I think is just. This just seems like a really great conference.

Rhonda: 25:12

And we've got posters there. We've got Jacob Attem's poster on refugee mental health.

Rhonda: 25:40

And so there's a few posters there and we've got another poster on artificial intelligence as well, so it's going to be a fabulous conference. I know that's been a long podcast. We're excited about this conference and we're going to give you all the details in the show notes Definitely will be there.

Oliver: 26:00

So once again, thank you guys, so much for your time. We will be at the conference, we'll be roving with you.

Oliver: 26:04

Yes, we will. We want to do a couple of podcasts while we're there. So, if you came to come and talk about your research, come and find us and we'll set up a time and we'll have a chat and put 10 or 15 minutes and you can tell us what's happening with there, but we'll be throughout all of these sessions one way or another. Just feel free to come and talk to us anytime. We're excited. We're excited to meet you guys. So, like I said, we'll put all these details in the show notes, all of the social media bits and pieces, all the ways to follow us as we go forward, and thank you, everybody, for your time.