Registered Nurse - Inpatient Mental Health

Job Title

Help build a meaningful nursing career supporting Veterans with complex behavioral health needs at the Sioux Falls VA Health Care System.

In this 24-hour inpatient setting, you will help create a structured, recovery-focused environment where therapeutic relationships, safety, teamwork, and compassionate care make a lasting difference. You will collaborate closely with mental health professionals, contribute your nursing expertise to individualized treatment decisions, guide support staff, and strengthen care through evidence-based practice and quality improvement. This role offers the opportunity to grow your psychiatric nursing skills while helping Veterans regain stability, independence, and confidence in their recovery.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Deliver patient-centered, recovery-oriented nursing care that supports each Veteran's treatment goals, safety, dignity, and overall well-being.
• Lead therapeutic milieu management by maintaining a structured, supportive inpatient environment that promotes stabilization and recovery.
• Coordinate shift reports and warm handoffs to ensure continuity, accuracy, and effective communication across the care team.
• Facilitate psychoeducational groups and use therapeutic communication to help Veterans build knowledge, coping strategies, and recovery skills.
• Respond to psychiatric emergencies by leading team interventions, applying de-escalation techniques, and addressing immediate clinical and safety needs.
• Conduct nursing assessments, document safety observations, and contribute to individualized treatment plans with Veteran-centered goals.
• Collaborate with the interdisciplinary mental health treatment team and contribute the nursing perspective to care planning and clinical decision-making.
• Guide licensed practical nurses and nursing assistants while supporting evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and professional knowledge sharing.

Pay: Competitive salary, regular salary increases, potential for performance awards

Licensure: 1 full and unrestricted license from any US State or territory

Work Schedule: Intermittent

Telework: Not Available

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

The VA Midwest Health Care Network advocates for a Whole Health System of care in each of the Medical Centers. This is an approach to healthcare that empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and well-being and live their lives to the fullest. As an employee operating in a Whole Health System of care, you will operate in a model with three core elements, seeking to create a personalized health plan for each Veteran. This is done in the context of healing relationships and healing environments and a connection back to the Veteran's community. This aligns with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Mission Statement to Honor America's Veterans by providing exceptional health care that improves their health and well-being.

US Department of Veterans Affairs