David Hains

David Hains is a mental health nurse from Adelaide. His full-time job is coordinating a Mental Health team in one of Australia’s busiest emergency departments. He has additional part time roles as an Adjunct Lecturer at Flinders University, as a co-editor of a new mental health text book to assist paramedics, has a small training business, and does several volunteer roles with professional groups.

As a “mental health” nurse in the “mental health” system, he gets incredibly frustrated that his colleagues and the whole system focuses on mental ILLNESS (i.e. deficits, disorders, disabilities, problems, weakness) rather than health. David would much prefer to focus on strengths, goals, abilities, and where people want to go to in order to reach the highest level of health and ability that they can.

In this regard, David is a strong advocate of the “Solution Focused” approach. SF is not about ignoring listening to other people’s problems or past, but rather is about identifying and working towards a more positive, more healthy future. He strongly believes that this approach is not only good for his clients but also that it fits perfectly with the basic tenants of nursing.

David is the President of the Australasian Solution Focused Association and coordinator of the South Australian SFBT Community of Practice. Within these roles, and with his private business Left Turn Solutions, he teaches and promotes the SF approach, helping individuals and services to develop more positive and more efficient and effective ways to get where they want to go. In 2020 Left Turn has been working with Mental Health NGO’s Sonder (Headspace) and Skylight to incorporate the Solution Focused Approach into their model of care.

David has won two nursing awards relating to his SFBT work: the 2016 South Australian Premier’s Nursing Scholarship (which took him to Canada to examine the use of SFBT in mental health settings), and the 2018 Achievement Award from the Australian College of Mental Health Nursing.

In his spare time David enjoys life in Adelaide with his wife Athena and 3 teenage children. For relaxation he loves to tinker on and occasionally sail his small wooden trailer sailer.

Your can read more about David here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hains-479632120/