Graduate Diploma of Mental Health Nursing

With around 42% of Australians* experiencing a mental health condition at some time in their life, there is significant government and industry focus on growing and fostering the mental health workforce. Designed with flexibility for practicing nurses, Deakin’s Graduate Diploma of Mental Health Nursing will provide you with the advanced practical skills and knowledge to launch, or advance, your practice in mental health.

Developed in consultation with our key industry partners, you’ll gain the comprehensive theoretical and advanced practical skills needed to work with consumers, carers and supporters in any setting where mental health intervention occurs. You’ll graduate with an advanced understanding of holistic nursing assessment, major mental health conditions, person-centred approaches, therapeutic and pharmacological interventions.

Are you looking to advance your career in mental health nursing while also gaining complementary knowledge and skills?

Help deliver the care that an increasing number of Australians need each year. With Deakin’s Graduate Diploma of Mental Health Nursing you’ll understand the core, foundational, and consumer-centric mental health concepts necessary to work within the multidisciplinary teams supporting consumers, carers and supporters.

In this two-year part-time course, you’ll undertake six core units via Deakin’s premium interactive learning platform, and can tailor your degree to your interests with the choice of two course electives.

During your first year you’ll gain an advanced understanding of comprehensive nursing assessment and the fundamental role that it plays in psychiatric and mental health nursing. You will learn to recognise the biological, psychological, social and spiritual components of an individual’s life, and how these can positively and negatively influence their mental health. Build on your existing skills with course content and assessments designed to facilitate advanced recognition and response to altered mental states and clinical presentations; develop comprehensive understanding of the experiences of vulnerable populations while also exploring high and low prevalence mental health conditions including, psychotic disorders, personality disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.

Expanding on these foundations you’ll examine and learn how to apply contemporary and effective person-centred therapeutic interventions; working with consumers, carers and supporters on their recovery journey. Students will explore trauma-informed care, principles of recovery-oriented nursing practice and the role of peers, carers and families in supporting consumers with mental health challenges. Contemporary mental health treatment calls for a combination of nursing interventions that treat symptoms, manage psychological distress and support and foster consumer wellbeing and resilience. You’ll gain a deep understanding of both pharmacologic and talk therapies that underpin current mental health nursing practices, including the quality use of psychotropic medications such as antipsychotic, antimanic, anxiolytic, and antidepressant medications; as well as person-centred approaches to talk therapy, such as cognitive behaviour therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy.

In the second year you’ll gain an advanced understanding and knowledge of the physical health issues associated with mental illness and its treatments, such as common complications experienced by those consumers taking psychotropic medications, including metabolic syndrome and other conditions caused by medication-induced obesity.

In order to support consumers living with mental health challenges, nurses must be resilient and able to thrive in spite of the demands and stress of working in this challenging environment. You’ll enhance and support your nursing practice to manage the dynamic and challenging experiences of working in the mental healthcare environment; safeguarding your personal mental health through recognising, navigating and preventing burnout.

You’ll have the opportunity to explore a personal area of interest, or add further specialised knowledge and skills to your CV with the inclusion of two course electives. You can tailor your degree and your career outcomes by choosing from a wide range of areas including vulnerable communities, counselling, diabetes education and management, or leadership and education in nursing.

As a graduate of the Graduate Diploma of Mental Health Nursing you’ll have the skills and knowledge to enhance your mental health nursing career as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN), senior clinician, or step into a leadership role across a range of community and inpatient settings.

*(People aged 16–85 years) National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020-2022