Christine has a conjoint appointment and is a Clinician-Senior Lecturer with the SNM and the Southern Tasmanian Mental Health Program. Her clinical practice is in the area of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) and with the Family Therapy Team based at Clare House in Hobart (the only formalised family therapy team in the state of Tasmania). Chris has been involved in collaborative research in both the mental health program and the Department of Psychological Medicine (DPM), Royal Hobart Hospital. She helped to develop the DPM Patient Satisfaction Survey in 1994-5 and between 1997-99 she was a member of the Tasmanian Children’s Project Research Team (a collaborative research venture between the SNM and the Southern Tasmanian Mental Health Program), involved in assessing the needs of children who have a parent/carer with a mental illness. During 1999 the research team won the Australian and New Zealand College of Mental Health Nurses (ANZCMHN) Stan Alchin Award.
Christine is a member of the Hobart Clinic (Private Mental Health Clinic) Research Committee which also comprises psychiatrists and psychologists. She began supervising Honours students in 2000. Christine has a particular interest in qualitative research designs and more particularly, phenomenology. Her research areas are in mental health, particularly child and adolescent mental health, and psychiatric nursing. She completed a Master of Education in 1999, which involved her utilising a phenomenological research design to evaluate the inaugural Graduate Diploma of Advanced Nursing (Mental Health/Psychiatric Nursing). Chris is (since 2003) the Course Co-ordinator of the Graduate Diploma of Nursing (Mental Health Psychiatric Nursing) and was promoted to the position of Senior Lecturer in 2004.
