Michael McKeown

About me

I am a mental health nurse who is currently employed in an operational leadership role within a metropolitan mental health service. Over the span of a 30-year career, I have worked in a variety of clinical, educational, and management positions in diverse clinical areas including aged psychiatry, general adult psychiatry, adolescent psychiatry, ECT nursing, nurse education, and nurse management.
Over the past 10 years, I have been privileged to work with nurses in the context of clinical supervision and have provided individual and group supervision to both mental health and general nurses. I have also worked with allied health colleagues working in mental health in providing supervision.
While I have worked with graduate clinicians through to program managers, my particular interest is working with clinicians who are making the transition in their careers from clinician to clinical leader/manager. That said, I firmly believe that clinical supervision plays a significant role in maintaining the wellbeing of nurses and welcome the opportunity to work with you wherever you find yourself along your professional journey.

My experience

Mont Park & Plenty Hospitals.
NWMH - Aged Person's Mental Health Program
Austin Health - ECT, Adult Acute Inpatient, Adolescent Inpatient, Neuropsychiatry, Post Trauma Recovery Service
Sunshine Hospital - GEM & Gen Med nursing
Victoria University - Vocational Education, teacher, Diploma of Nursing
Leadership and Management

My current role/work

Austin Health - Divisional (Operations) Manager, Adult Mental Health Services, Mental Health Division.

My training

Registered Nurse.

Bachelor of Nursing. Grad Cert Psychiatric Nursing. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training Practice. Cert IV Training and Assessment. Master of Mental Health Nursing. Master of Health Management.

Associate Fellow – Australasian College of Health Service Management.

Certified Health Manager – Australasian College of Health Service Management.

Clinical Supervision for Role Development (2023) Clinical Supervision Consultancy. Clinical Supervision Training (2015) The Bouverie Centre. Clinical Supervision Core Module (2013) Monash University. Clinical Supervision for Nurses (2013) Centre for Psychiatric Nursing. Clinical Supervision for Health Care Professionals (2005) Centre for Psychiatric Nursing Research and Practice.

My approach to supervision

My clinical supervision work is strongly influenced by the theories of cognitive constructivism and reflective and experimental adult learning models. I tend to draw from the following models: psychodynamic models, reflective models, interpersonal relations models, and the Role Development Model. I am not a purist in any one modality though and will tend to work in such a way that draws on several models and meets the needs of the supervisee.