Behavioral Health Nurse Consultant

[lovelucklaughter76]

Hello all. I have just started a new position this week in our home care agency entitled "Behavioral Health Nurse Consultant". It is a brand new position that was developed after they eliminated our behavioral health team, so the actual job duties are ill-defined and are partly my responsibility to flesh out.

I have always done patient care, so this side of nursing is new to me. My mentor, the person who created this position, also presents it to me as a "work in progress", and she has now been laid off and her last day is Friday! So I am now left to do this with little guidance.

Does anyone have any experience in a support position like this? I have a skeleton idea of what this position may entail, including supporting the field staff by providing resources, teaching such things as relaxation methods to teach patients, safety in the home, tips for working with patients who have varying behavioral health issues, etc. I will be doing teaching moments in person and via memos, I believe. I may be doing facetime or phone visits with patients. I will not be doing face to face visits. Do any of you have any suggestions on what sort of support or education would be helpful for field staff and patients that can be provided from the office?

Thank you all

[elkpark]

I'm hoping you are an experienced psychiatric nurse?

[lovelucklaughter76]

I'm hoping you are an experienced psychiatric nurse?

Yes, 10 years of psych nursing experience and 10 years of psych social work prior to going back to school for nursing.

[elkpark]

Have you thought about setting up a formal clinical supervision model with the nurses who are doing the in-home, face-to-face psych visits, regular scheduled sessions in which you sit down with them and review cases, talk about how they're handling the cases, make suggestions, problem-solve and brainstorm with them about specific challenges, that sort of thing? If you have a social work background, you must be familiar with classic clinical supervision (more so than most nurses are). That seems to me like an obvious place to start. You could also identify specific topics (psych-related) on which the nursing staff could use further education, and do some inservices.

It sounds like an interesting position and opportunity! And it can be cool to be the "inaugural" person in a newly created position, and get to develop the specifics of the position yourself. With your background, they're lucky to have you. Congratulations!