Decolonising mental health nursing education: why it matters and where to start

A mental health nursing curriculum reflects decisions about whose knowledge counts, which histories of psychiatry are taught, and whose experiences of distress are considered intelligible within professional frameworks of care. Drawing on the author's research in culturally responsive nursing education, the article examines why the racialised history of psychiatry remains absent from most preregistration curricula, and how diversity continues to be treated as an additional topic rather than integral to mental health nursing education. The author discusses the importance of participatory approaches in the learning environment and the role of nurse educators to ensure that nursing programmes better reflect the equity commitments set out in the Nursing and Midwifery Council standards.