Empowered Nurses, Future Care: Supporting the Next Generation of Mental Health Nurses

To mark International Nurses Day, this episode of The Stigma Shift focuses on the people learning, growing and preparing to shape the future of mental health care.Shona Giles, Clinical Placement Coordinator at St John of God University Hospital, joins the podcast to discuss her role in supporting mental health nursing students during their clinical placements. She reflects on the importance of a positive learning environment, the value of mentorship, and how clinical experience helps students build confidence, compassion and professional identity.This year’s International Nurses Day theme, Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives., offers a timely opportunity to recognise not only the vital contribution of nurses today, but also the importance of investing in the nurses of tomorrow.Through this conversation with Elaine, Shona explores what it means to support students in a specialist mental health setting, the role of education in high-quality patient care, and why empowered nurses are essential to the future of healthcare.THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUTStudent placements are deeply immersiveTherapeutic relationships are built on communicationManage shift work and feedback pressuresWeekly reflective practice builds self-awarenessThe immense commitment of nurse trainingGUEST DETAILSShona Giles is a Clinical Placement Coordinator and registered mental health nurse at St John of God University Hospital. She is a core member of the Nurse Practice Development unit. Her key skills include overseeing student clinical placements, ensuring quality learning environments, and supporting students from the academic to the clinical settingMORE INFORMATIONTo find out more about the work of the St John of God University Hospital visit stjohnofgodhospital.ieQUOTESStudents are straight in. They're getting involved in anything that's happening on the wards, and they're very much supervised, of course, you know, from stage one onwards. - Shona GilesThe student nurse will be involved in that documentation of the patient's presentation and really like building on their own communication skills and their therapeutic relationships… -  Shona GilesIf you can just be the person that listens. You're actually That's huge. That's really powerful. -  Shona GilesKEYWORDS #MentalHealth #NursingStudent #ClinicalPlacement #ReflectivePractice #NurseTraining