Mental health nursing jobs?

[Kieron.L]

Hi,

I'm new to this forums so forgive me if this topic has been raised a few times already. I am currently working as an RMN in UK, and am looking for opportunities to work over there. My partner is Finnish and she would quite easily find a good position with her current skill set.

I have done some of my own research and am aware of the professional body (Valvira) I would need to apply to for licencing if I wanted to work there, but the obvious obstacle for me working in the country is the language. I know I will need to learn, but is anyone aware of where I can maybe find a position similar to my field of practise where It might be ok to be an English speaker only? or a place that will support you in learning the language whilst enabling you to work and earn?

Regarding other types of work, I only have basic qualifications from GSCE's and a foundation Degree in IT & Business (though I remember none of it). The only Degree that I have that is of some worth is the BSc in mental health nursing. Would anyone have some suggestions of what other type of work I can then do? while I learn the language? To be honest even factory work or working in a supermarket I would consider, as I might be able to learn some basic language skills. I really don't want to be that guy living of my partner's earnings?

Any help is welcome.

Thank you
Kieron


If there

[biscayne]

Hi, I am a Registered Nurse living here. (I have other degrees too, but let's stick with nursing for now).

Your problem is that you are a mental health nurse, which is a distinct qualification on the UK register. I am from Ireland and there are those same divisions on the register. In Finland, in common with most of Europe apart from the UK and Ireland, you must be a general registered nurse in order to get registered. If you then want to work in mental health, fine, you get a job in mental health or do additional studies, degrees, certificates etc.

To my knowledge you cannot be registered in Finland with the title of "nurse" as they do not recognise mental health nursing as an entity of it's own, mental health nurses here would be Registered Nurses with additional qualifications. The register divisions in Finland are, RN, Midwife and Public Health Nurse.

[biscayne]

Sorry, forgot to answer your question re. language.

You will not get a job without knowing Finnish, or Swedish if you want to work in those areas. Or both. Really. You will not. They just cannot employ you. Imagine a nurse working in the NHS with no English - yes I know many of them have bad English (I have been shocked, truly shocked over there) but, you cannot work with NO language skills.

My advice: if you really want to live here, apply for the English language Bachelor of Nursing here - there are a few Universities of Applied Science which offer it. You will get credits for some courses you have taken for sure, do Finnish at night, really concentrate on that. But, your best chance is elder care after all that study and work, are you up for that?

[SAHM]

If you want to work using english only, I can think of only one place - cleaning at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. I know that they hire english speakers but the salary is very low and it's really hard work.

If you want to work as your level of nurse in Finland, I would do as biscayne suggests, study. You could become general nurse or do you call it a registered nurse quite quickly with your previous training. You could also try to get a job as a practical nurse/mental health orientarion without any extra studies. The salary difference is only 400€/month in Helsinki region. I am a practical nurse myself and I have seen registered nurses (foreigners) and medical students working as practical nurses. Several of my collegues says that after paying taxes, the salary difference between us and registered nurses is practically nothing. Also the job is often exactly the same. When I did a practical training in mental health institution, there was no difference between what I did and what registered nurse did. I too am allowed to give injections and other medication. I too, write reports.

But you need to learn finnish first. I've heard that it's possible to do it in one year if you have good motivation and good language school.

[biscayne]

Yes - but the problem again is that he is not qualified as a practical nurse by Finnish standards and cannot get registered as such. For example, in the USA, if you are a Registered Nurse, simply because that level of education is higher does not mean you can get on the register as a Licensed Practical Nurse, even though that level of education is lower - you have not done the LPN course, so you are not an LPN.

It's like saying that if you are a Doctor you can then automatically work as a nurse because you know more than they do anyway. That may be true, but you have not got a Nursing degree so you cannot work as a nurse. This is why when I worked in the US I had a Russian Surgeon working as my nurse's aide. He could not work as a nurse because he was not a nurse.

He is a Registered Mental Health Nurse, a separate division on the British register, in Britain he cannot work as a general nurse without doing the conversion course, and in Finland, because they don't have a system where you train as a Mental Health Nurse from the beginning of your education, he basically cannot get registered in Finland at all. Same in eg. the US, Mental Health is something you do after you become a Registered Nurse.

He has to become a Nurse - Registered or Practical - in order to work as a licensed professional in Finland.

[SAHM]

Actually not all the employers demand registering. But if you want to become a practical nurse with this background, you can probably do it in 6 months. I did! But I'm not sure how often they offer these fast options in english.

[SAHM]

Also, the current practical nurse and registered nurse system is quite new. The practical nurse training started 1993. Earlier nurses studied only one area. So we do have lots of nurses in both levels who has studied only about mental health.

[SAHM]

According to Valvira, you don't have to be registered nurse at all if your employer thinks you have knowledge and skills enough. Sorry, this link is in finnish. It does not excist in english.

http://www.valvira.fi/terveydenhuolto/ammattioikeudet

So according to this, you might get a job as a higher level of mental health nurse without any extra studies. I am using the word higher level and lower level when I'm speaking about practical nurse and registered nurse.

[biscayne]

Something not right there. The title of Nurse, is a protected and licensed profession in Europe according to the statues of the European Union. Only persons registered as a Nurse on the appropriate division of the register of their country can practice as a Nurse. The UK and Ireland have only Registered Nurses, the UK did have Enrolled Nurses, but that is gone. The Registered Nurse in Ireland or the UK may be a General Registered Nurse, a Registered Midwife, a Registered Mental Health Nurse, and there are a number of other types on the register.

Other countries have higher and lower categories of Nurse based on the fact that they have secondary schools for health related professions, if you graduate from that type of secondary school you have the title of a lower or practical nurse, if you continue on to the University or other 3rd level area you gain the title of Registered Nurse. But you must have a license and be on the register in order to practice. I think you might be referring to the fact that in Finland because there are fewer divisions of the register (3- RN, Midwife and Public Health Nurse as well as Practical Nurse) you can get a job in say, a Psychiatric Hospital if your employer thinks you are suitable, whereas in the UK Psychiatric or Mental Health Nurse is a totally separate education, degree, and division on the register and does not entitle you to practice as an RN in a normal hospital, same with Pediatric Nursing in the UK - you have to be a Pediatric Nurse to work in a children's hospital and it is a different education from the beginning. Look at the divisions on the Irish register or the UK one, and the degree courses in the Universities and you will see what I mean.

[Kieron.L]

Actually not all the employers demand registering. But if you want to become a practical nurse with this background, you can probably do it in 6 months. I did! But I'm not sure how often they offer these fast options in english.

Hi, what schools or universities can you reccomend will help with the conversion to become a registered general nurse? how did you do this? and can you point me in the right direction of where i can apply?

Why o why you'd want to waste your career and be something that you are not in a alien land where you no speak the language and practically different life then what you have been experiencing till now. If you have a job, keep it, the equivalent job here is low paid and living expenses are REALLY high.

As you partner already have some skills, I bet it'd be easier for her to find job in UK than for you in Finland.

Finland is good for some summer vacations, that's all and don't forget to pack good warm clothes while visiting Finland during summer.

Well that's a little close minded. My partner does ave a good job, but i am just trying to open myself to new opportunities as she may wish to move back for a wile and if we to eventually ave children it would be easier for her with family and cild care. The opportunities don't need to be easy.

[SAHM]

I am a practical nurse, not registered nurse. But for registered nurse:

http://www.metropolia.fi/en/apply/studi ... s/nursing/

You don't tell me where are you planning to live but Metropolia and couple other colleges in Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo area have english registered nurse programs.I believe there are english programs in some smaller towns as well. The kind of college you need is ammattikorkeakoulu or AMK. But I'm sure that your partner can help you with this. Usually you apply to several different schools and do some tests and interviews. They all have great reputation.

As you see, you need to speak some finnish before you can apply. And if you want to become a registered nurse, it will take more than 6 months.

If I were you, I would ofcourse study some finnish first and then I would ask from hospitals, nursing homes etc. if they even require this conversion from you. I mean there are thousands of "old" nurses out there who still gets hired even though they are not registered nurses. We still have mental health nurses who are not allowed to work as registered nurses. Even without asking, I can say that any professional foster home (the place where kids end up when they can't stay with their own or someone elses family) would welcome you. Also private nursing homes with mental health patients would be thrilled to have you. In private nursing homes I've seen lots of people working without any professinal background just because they have some special skills.

[leisl]

I have to agree with roger_roger. You are underestimating the difficulty of learning the language and adapting to Finland. It's admirable that you want things to be easier for your partner, but she reallllllly has the easier time by being in the UK and even raising a child there away from her parents, compared with you moving here and effectively starting your career all over again. Moving to Finland and not into an English-speaking job will generally set a career back ten years.

Achieving career-level Finnish language in one year is not realistic. It'll take you 3-5 years to reach the level you need for the workplace with a lot of work (probably C1 level). We have scores of people here at B-level after 5-10 years. And we're not stupid, in fact many of us are multilingual or even qualified instructors and teachers.

Your likely career path, if you're determined to do this, will either be you retraining or settling for elder care, which takes people at about B level. UK/US/Commonwealth "hot blonde syndromers" (generally men who marry a Finn) are the ones most likely to flail and go back after a couple of years. The Finnish doldrums are a real thing, when it all seems too hard, too slow, and too cold. Many of us can share such stories of serious depression kicking in as the language turns out far harder than we expected, and/or we've become very isolated without friends.

Sure, you might not want to think you're like all the others. But in life, most of us really and truly aren't exceptional, and we end up being very much alike the people who come from similar backgrounds.

[SAHM]

Achieving career-level Finnish language in one year is not realistic. We say it a thousand times, it'll take you 3-5 years to reach the level you need for the workplace. 5 years for nursing-level Finnish if you're normal, 3 if you are highly motivated and in a position to study the language full-time. There is only ONE person in this entire forum who got to even YKI level to my knowledge in one year and they are a language fiend (let's see if they pipe up). We've discussed it before and we got one person arguing, but it turned out they just thought they were close to that level after 14 months but they hadn't been tested and didn't really use it in normal life (so basically... no.).

I disagree with you. I know personally people who have learned the language in one year well enough to work in demanding customer service, specialised vocabulary included. I've also heard that there are several filippina nurses working in HUS who moved to Finland because of job. My nursing teacher said that these women learned finnish in one year.

But finnish is one of the most difficult languages to learn if you are a native english speaker. I as a person living in France could not ever work as a nurse in french. I haven't learned the language well enough. But then all my friends here are english speakers and I am a stay-at-home-mom with small kids. So I don't really have the energy and ability to concentrate. I know women who are married to french and who have hired private tutors. And they learned the language in few months. If person has his personal life in order, is motivated and has funds to hire a private tutor (or do one of those expensive language schools) I believe he can learn the language in one year.

[anonfinn]

deleted

[leisl]

I disagree with you. I know personally people who have learned the language in one year well enough to work in demanding customer service, specialised vocabulary included. I've also heard that there are several filippina nurses working in HUS who moved to Finland because of job. My nursing teacher said that these women learned finnish in one year.

Seen the newspaper articles about it? Those special schemes for bringing the big groups of nurses over from the Philippines flopped..

Riddle me this, the TE office provides 12 to 15 months of full-time Finnish instruction for people who start from level 0 and in that time they are expected to reach about level A2.2, with some 5-10% of students reaching B1. I am quite sure that if motivation were all that's required, the TE office would motivate the &%!# out of people to get to C2 in a year. The reason they don't expect it is that it can't be done.

Of course, occasionally someone can get to fluency in a year. But expecting this from any old Joe is simply not realistic. B2's fine for customer service, B1 would really struggle to even follow the conversation, and ah, you really can't administer medicines incorrectly and then say "Oho."

But finnish is one of the most difficult languages to learn if you are a native english speaker.

So what you're saying is... it's going to be difficult for the OP? Glad we're on the same page.

If person has his personal life in order, is motivated and has funds to hire a private tutor (or do one of those expensive language schools) I believe he can learn the language in one year.

Oh. Apparently we're not. Or something. Someone will no doubt dig up the thread about the refugee who learned Finnish in a year and a half and did her matriculation in Finnish. It was widely lauded as being outstanding bordering on amazing. Not just by us but by the press in general. And she was young (learns faster) and it's still amazing that she managed that in a year and a half. But yet, you still seem to think it's realistic for a grown adult to do it faster as if it's the most normal thing in the world?

It just doesn't grok.

OP... while motivation is really important... having a positive attitude will not overcome all things.