Sandra Keppich-Arnold

Sandra is a registered and credentialed psychiatric nurse and has spent several years in leadership positions within Nursing, Aged Psychiatry & Residential Services and Adult Mental Health. As Clinical Service Director / Director of Nursing for Alfred Psychiatry, she has responsibilities for operational management of the allied health, nursing and administration teams of the Adult, Aged and CYMHS/Headspace programs of Alfred Psychiatry.

In the past few years Sandra has led a number of Alfred Health initiatives around management of complex behavioural presentations across hospital settings, enhancing models of consultation liaison nursing in medical and surgical units and the emergency and trauma centre at the Alfred.

The practice issues that are important to Sandra include ensuring the voice of consumers and their families are not diminished and that their feedback is valued and shapes service improvement and opportunities for service development. She is delighted to see over time the slow changes initiatives such as Safewards can make to workforce cultures.

Sandra has a commitment to promoting and embedding training and education into workforce frameworks to ensure staff are engaged, capable and competent. She has established a three-year specialist graduate program for nurses that has supported an increasingly capable and available nursing workforce.

Sandra has led and participated in a number of research activities involving family and consumer experiences of carer, clinical handover of risk, triage competencies and outcomes. Sandra has participated in reviews of nursing and mental health programs across a number of jurisdictions.