Julia Finbar Hopkins

About me

I am a mental health nurse and a midwife with a background in teaching at university level. I commenced my nursing career in Ireland and did further training in the UK and Australia before emigrating to Australia where I completed higher degree studies.Overtime working in clinical settings, I have recognised that nurses and midwives need a nurturing space to process their work and ultimately help them enrich and strengthen their professional practice.Accordingly, my life's work has became focused on developing, training in clinical supervision and facilitating clinical supervision for groups and individuals.

My experience

My clinical supervision is informed by my experience in developing education and training programs/course in clinical supervision for mental health nurses in Victoria as well as facilitating peer and group supervision.In the last 6 years I have been working in private practice with groups from a across a range of disciplines that include ,maternal and child health, psychology, social work, forensic mental health and psychotherapy.

My current role/work

As well as my private practice I am currently working in a major public health care setting as a Wellbeing Consultant. As a Wellbeing Consultant the skills I employ are equitable to my work as a clinical supervisor. This role enables me to facilitate reflective practice group for general nurses working in acute public settings as well as engaging short term counselling support and coaching, critical incident defuse and building leadership capacity and practising mindfulness.

My training

I have been trained over a number of years in various modes of clinical supervision, those include, training in the Foundational course in clinical supervision at The University of Melbourne, the Role Development Model, by Paul Spurr, Training in Supervising Teams and Groups , Action Learning Sets, the Balint method of clinical supervision and in Infant Observation

My approach to supervision

My approach to supervision is grounded in the belief that clinicians have the potential to transform their personal lives and their professional practice if they receive validation and support to safely to explore and process the challenges and beauty that is inherent in their work. My interest and passion in clinical supervision comes from an understanding that nurses and midwives work in complex environments therefore, they need emotional support to sustain them.I renew my practice as a supervisor by having individual and peer supervision, attending and participating in conferences as well as been a member of Australian Clinical Supervision Association and Australian College Of Mental Health Nurses.