Partner: Wendy Hawksworth Nurse Educator Mental Health Brisbane Australia

Preferred contact: ihawk@tpg.com.au
Key Words: Resident in: Australia; Working in: Brisbane Australia ; Area(s) of Interest in VBP: Values Blindness, Nursing, Interprofessional Education, Mutidisciplinary Practice, Team Work, Engagement, Changing Institutional Practice, Organizational Change, Acute Mental Health, In Patient Units, Community Mental Health Related Area(s) of Interest: Recovery, Communication skills, Decision theory, Ethics, Philosophy; Decreasing seclusion and Area(s) of healthcare expertise: Acute Mental Health Care, Community Mental Health, Mental Health Education, Nursing
Brief Description of Work: Since completing my MA in Philosophy and Psychiatry in 2011 my eyes have been opened up to the possibility of a kinder practice. I work at the pointy end of psychiatry in an acute mental health area where there is a distinct gap between the rhetoric of recovery, self-determination and patient-centered care and the actual practice of control and coercion. For the last 4 years I have been involved in developing and teaching VBP to staff working in acute and community mental health. I have faced many hurdles and learnt many lessons from this ….least of all institutional practice is slow and reluctant to change. I am interested in how knowledge of VBP is transferred and sustained into practice. I am particularly interested in the role that clinical supervision could play in this.
I am writing a training manual and reader for staff working in in-patient units with people experiencing a psychosis from a VBP perspective. This is due for completion late 2015.I am also awaiting publication of a joint book chapter on handling ethical dilemmas in multi-disciplinary teams.

Permission to care: A conversation from an inpatient unit Wendy Hawksworth and Andrew Blythe
For a conversation exploring values-based practice with Andrew Blythe see: Permission to Care

For a new reading guide and training pack that provides the mental health worker with a step by step approach to Values-based Practice based on  practical scenarios  that support person centred care within inpatient units.
https://www.pavpub.com/applying-values-based-practice-people-experiencing-psychosis/