The Centre for Psychiatric Nursing Research and practice: promoting excellence in psychiatric nursing.

The Centre for Psychiatric Nursing Research and Practice (CPNRP), is funded by the Department of Human Services Victoria, as an initiative to support psychiatric nurses throughout the State of Victoria. At the time of the CPNRPs inception in 1999, psychiatric nursing had been affected by widespread changes in the delivery of mental health services and nursing education in Victoria. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the development of the CPNRP and how this development reflected the significant issues of the time. The CPNRP introduced a number of programs and other initiatives in response to six primary issues: recruitment, retention, leadership, professional development, research: practice gap and communication.