Child Care: Mental Health, Psychology and Nursing

Biography

Biography: Robyn Fox

Abstract

The research was undertaken to explore the role of the public-sector hospital-employed nurse educator in the Australian setting as the research context was one of ambiguity surrounding this role in the development of a culture of learning in nursing. National and international literature provide evidence of a lack of role clarity and variable role-enactment. An interpretative design was adopted with the theoretical tenets of symbolic interactionism informing data collection and analysis with a grounded theory approach of Corbin and Strauss undertaken. Data analysis led to the development of the theoretical understanding of negotiating boundaries, which explains how nurse educators negotiated social, political and symbolic boundaries to establish order by which they were accepted as a resource safety net, and a champion of practice standards within health care organizations. This concept presents a way of interpreting the world that explains the complexities and tensions of the nurse educator role within industry practice, and the implications for the role in fulfilling continuing education needs in an environment where clinical care takes precedence. Additionally, these nurse educators were found to generally act as an adaptable and tolerant workplace resource who reflects on and interprets behaviors, actions, and emotions to accommodate the expectations of the majority. As such, the concept has been used to energize, engage and modify nursing and midwifery education services to foster practice change, enhanced engagement and conclusive outcomes across a Hospital and Health Service comprising over eight thousand nurses and midwives. Governance, action plans, models, workshops, career pathways and other strategies coupled with increased nurse educator and nursing and midwifery workforce support processes for all classifications have been implemented with positive effect. Outcomes to date include enhanced interaction, innovation, reduced duplication of effort, and less contradictory dimensions of the contemporary role of the nurse educator in the industry environment. This has resulted in increases in human, fiscal and physical resources and articulated appreciation of the role, engagement, and service outcomes. Moreover, many of the resources and strategies devised and applied have been adopted for statewide use. As such, the approaches taken have been determined by the profession to have creditably and transportability resulting in increased executive sponsored opportunity to influence practice change, and foster engagement in scholarly pursuits, and culture of ongoing learning.