Kylie Boucher

About me

I have been a mental health nurse since 2011, working as a Clinical Nurse Educator and then for the Centre for Psychiatric Nursing, before joining the CMHL at its inception in 2018. I have a particular passion for workforce training and development and was a teacher before becoming a mental health nurse. I am especially passionate about human rights, growing the lived experience workforces and supporting clinicians to adhere to recovery-oriented and strengths based approaches despite the pressures of working in risk averse settings.

My experience

I have been a mental health nurse since 2011 and worked in a variety of inpatient settings, mostly SECU. I quickly moved into a Clinical Nurse Educator role, given my education background. I spent one year working with the Centre of Mental Health Nursing (formerly the CPN), alongside Cath Roper (consumer academic) and led by Bridget Hamilton. Since early 2018 I have been the Senor Lead at CMHL. I have been providing clinical supervision since 2013, mainly to early career mental health RNs.

My current role/work

I am the Senior Lead at CMHL. In this role I manage eight members of our CMHL team, including our three EN educators, and our Learning and Practice Development (LPD) team. I lead CMHL planning and strategy around engagement, website growth, training and more. I am especially proud of the work the CMHL is doing to support and grow leadership in the lived experience workforces.

My training

I have a Master of Nursing Science, a Master of Advanced Nursing Practice (Mental Health) and am currently completing a Master of Public Health. I also have a Bachelor of Education from the 90s!!
I love training and development and completed two days Clinical Supervision training delivered by the NEVIL cluster a few years ago. I also attended supervision training with Bouverie a few years ago (a 1 or 2 day refresher course). I frequently attend conferences and other relevant training.

My approach to supervision

I do not adhere to a particular model of supervision. Of the models described in the Clinical Supervision Framework for Mental Health Nurses, I would describe my approach as most inline with the 'Growth and support model' (Faugier 1992). I focus on supporting the nurse to practice according to their personal strengths and values, within nursing frameworks and standards, whilst focussing on human-rights and how to maintain these within settings that can and do deprive consumers of some basic rights. Much of my work involves me supporting nurses to grow into thoughtful, considered practitioners that are capable of critiquing their own practice and service priorities and pressures, and developing greater awareness of consumer perspectives and where to source these.