Staff Nurse

Brief Description

Join The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD as a Staff Nurse, RN and unleash your innovative spirit! As part of our interdisciplinary team, you will provide nursing care to individuals with mental and developmental disabilities in various settings. Embrace creativity, utilize the nursing process, and contribute to transforming care within the standards of practice. The nursing process will be used to plan, implement, document, and evaluate nursing care provided under the requirements of the Texas Nurse Practice Act within the Standards of Nursing Practice.

Join us in pioneering a new era of nursing at The Harris Center.

• Contribute to suicide care and prevention by embracing our values and applying a trauma‑informed approach rooted in safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment.
• Utilize a five‑step systematic process (nursing process) to deliver consumer services. This includes assessment, analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
• Demonstrate clinically sound, systematic, timely decision making that is well researched and reflects awareness of impact, governed by state and Agency practices.
• Perform technical nursing skills within the scope of practice for an RN and in accordance with Agency policies and procedures for individual and/or multiple consumer assignments. Perform diagnostic tests, administer medications, set up equipment, and apply therapeutic treatments.
• Document relevant information regarding nursing care in consumer records, charts, and reports. Include observations of consumer signs, symptoms, test results, behaviors, and responses to medications and treatments. Comply with established Agency policies/procedures, accrediting/regulatory bodies, and performance contract documentation requirements.
• Inform, explain, and educate consumers and family members regarding medications, relevant treatment information, and disease processes. Provide pertinent health information at an appropriate level and include meaningful literature to support understanding.
• Provide nursing care with focus on consumer, environmental, and technical safety.
• Assign specific tasks, activities, and functions and maintain appropriate supervision of other RNs, LVN’s, and unlicensed personnel in Agency settings for consumers with a variety of health care needs in accordance with program design and structure.
• Demonstrate behaviors that promote development of positive outcomes in relation to the practice of professional nursing.
• Utilize a problem‑solving approach as the basis for decision making in practice, including reporting relevant information to other members of the health care team or supervising Registered Nurse/Physician.
• Provide health education and information on disease processes and medications to other members of the health care team in order to meet/address consumer health care needs.
• Perform related work as assigned and adapt to changing work requirements.
• Comply with Agency policies and procedures.

• Associate's Degree in Nursing (ADN) from a two‑year college.
• RN license required.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing (BSN) from a four‑year college or university.

• Minimum 1 year at entry level to 2 years nursing experience (not including clinical hours required for education). For RNs with at least 2 years of experience, a minimum of 1 year of mental health/behavioral health/intellectual/disability nursing experience is preferred.

• Knowledge of Texas Board of Nurse Examiners Nurse Practice Act and Standards of Nursing Practice.
• Knowledge of applicable pharmacy rules and regulations.
• Basic knowledge of pharmacology.
• Knowledge of therapeutic communication.
• Understanding of standard precautions and infection control procedures for handling sharp instruments, needles, blood, and body fluids exposure.
• Understanding of good body mechanics to avoid injury.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills and data collection skills.
• Positive interpersonal skills.
• Good organizational skills with the ability to prioritize.
• Demonstrates initiative and self‑direction.
• Able to coordinate well with others and work effectively as a team…