Making room for the work
Therapeutic engagement, clinical supervision, First Nations leadership and digital care — and one question running through all of them. What has to happen around frontline staff for good ideas to become everyday care?
By William Coleman, Xantha
“Master your craft.” That advice from Tracy Beaton’s oration at ACMHN 2026 sits close to how we approach our work at Xantha. Her call to prepare deeply, think rigorously and practise with humanity gives us plenty to keep working towards.
Day 1 in Adelaide also brought a practical question into focus: what needs to happen around frontline staff for good ideas to become everyday care? Across therapeutic engagement, clinical supervision, First Nations leadership and digital care, a recurring issue was how to make room for that work in a busy service.
Recognising the skill in therapeutic work
Tracy put dignity and the skill of mental health nursing at the centre of her oration. She described de-escalation and therapeutic engagement as advanced clinical capabilities, grounded in judgement, knowledge and the ability to stay humane under pressure.
That has practical implications for how we develop people. Listening carefully, noticing fear and helping someone feel safe enough to stay connected all deserve serious attention in education and leadership. They also need opportunities for reflection, feedback and continued learning.
Tracy connected frontline practice with the work of influencing policy and securing resources. Nurses’ knowledge needs to be present where decisions about services are made. The conditions around care help determine whether people can sustain the practice we’re asking of them.
Making time for reflection
Clinical supervision gave that question a very concrete form.
Julie Porter described Tasmania’s work to build a more consistent supervision network, with executive sponsorship, supervisor development and coordination to help people find a supervisor. She was clear about the difficulty of protecting time and the need to keep supporting supervisors after their initial training.
There’s a useful lesson here for anyone responsible for implementation: work out how people will actually access the support. Who covers the work while they attend? What happens when a session is cancelled? Who keeps the arrangements going when a manager moves on?
In Brendon Robinson’s session on reflective practice and Safewards, I asked about leadership support and the pressure of time. It’s a question Lisa Spong and I have been working through while helping frontline staff develop their Safewards practice: what comes off the plate so people have time to do this work?
Brendon explained that the work had started with nurse unit managers who already valued clinical supervision. That’s important context when thinking about implementation elsewhere. Services also need a plan for building support where it doesn’t yet exist.
Giving people a real say in care
Vanessa Browne’s keynote, The future is our people, brought First Nations leadership, culture, family and community into the discussion about how services need to change. She called for truth-telling backed by action and structural change.
One practical point from the questions afterwards was to ask a person what their biggest worry is. The concern they bring may be different from the priority a clinician has assumed.
That is a useful prompt to take into everyday practice. How do we find out what matters to the person? How does that change the conversation or the plan? And whose knowledge is shaping the way the service works?
The everyday conversation sits within a bigger responsibility to support Indigenous leadership and culturally safe care. Both need attention.
Keeping relationships in digital care
The digital sessions brought similar questions into a different setting.
Bosede Adetifa’s presentation on digitally enabled clinical supervision argued that supervisors need preparation for remote practice, including boundaries, confidentiality, digital fatigue and the loss of some informal learning opportunities. Moving a conversation online still requires careful thought about how people can speak openly and reflect safely.
The AI discussions also called for care in how we adopt new tools. Dr Sinead Barry highlighted privacy, governance and human oversight in considering task-based support for clinicians. A/Prof Oliver Higgins raised the importance of asking how people are using AI companions and understanding what those interactions are doing in their lives.
These are useful questions for services exploring technology: what purpose will this serve, what risks need attention, and who remains responsible? Claims about what a tool can do need to be examined alongside the way people actually use it.
What to take back to work
For teams taking ideas home from Day 1, a useful starting point is to choose one change and work through the conditions it needs. Identify the time, support and people needed to make it part of ordinary practice. Decide how you’ll hear from the people receiving care and learn whether the change is helping.
For those at ACMHN 2026: what is one thing your service could take off people’s plates to make room for better therapeutic care?
These are Xantha's own notes and reflections, not official ACMHN 2026 content. Speakers' findings are summarised in our words — for the detail, go to the presenters and the conference program.