Mental Health branch nurses
Mental health services provide care for people who experience common problems such as depression and anxiety and other rarer problems such as schizophrenia or dementia.
Settings and specialist areas
As a mental health nurse you will have the chance to progress your career in a number of settings, such as:
- local community
- hospital wards
- special units
- charitable trusts
- private care homes
- accident and emergency
There are various specialist areas open to you, including working with:
- children and adolescents
- families
- women with postnatal depression
- older people
- people with drug and alcohol issues
- forensic services
Some choose to go on to specialise in particular therapeutic interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling, or one of the other many and varied psychosocial approaches.
Developing your skills
The course you choose at Nottingham will develop your clinical skills and give you invaluable experience, but you will also need a broad range of personal qualities. You will need an interest in working with people, good listening and communication skills, a compassionate nature and a willingness to help people develop the skills they need to live their lives.
Learning in Practice
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, with which you'll be working, is one of the leading care trusts in the UK for mental health, with a broad range of services, including community projects to specialist care hospitals, such as Rampton. In this field of nursing you will work with individuals from all walks of life and with people that have a variety of mental health problems.
Many mental health nurses are based in the community and during your placements you could be visiting people in their homes, working in rehabilitation services or providing the help people need to access employment and leisure activities. You could also find yourself working with prisoners and those experiencing problems from substance misuse. You could also be on placement working with children, adolescents and their families.