Guest Appearance… EP. 33 Your Health Matters Podcast
Guest Appearances – Speaking on Professional Boundaries
I’m honoured to have recently been invited by the Nurses & Midwives Support team to have a conversation about Professional Boundaries with the host, Mark Aitken, on episode 33 of their always educational and often insightful, Your Health Matters podcast. They invited me to provide you with the facts, information, resources, and support you need to confidently assert your own boundaries.
Nurses & Midwife Support regularly hears from nurses and midwives that managing their professional boundaries can be difficult and confusing, and they offer support to nurses and midwives impacted by boundary transgressions or with questions about boundary management and know that navigating professional boundaries is rarely easy, or black and white. They know that understanding professional boundaries is vital for nurses and midwives to meet registration requirements, practice safely, and protect ourselves and the public from harm. Unfortunately, asserting professional boundaries isn’t always easy.
Read More2022 – Who would have thought…
2022! Who would have thought…
… we would be going onto our third year since Covid made its first dramatic entrance. Two+ years of talking of nothing but ‘lockdown’, ‘mandatory’, ‘isolation’ or ‘quarantine’. No more ‘do you think it will rain today’ more like ‘have you been vaccinated’. April 2020, my first thought was ‘what’s going to happen to me and my work’. Well, I shouldn’t have worried one little bit. Yes, Davaar teetered for 2 seconds but my boss, whose brain never shuts down much, has come out of it for us. Long story short, Wendy continued to think outside the box.
Davaar workshops and supervision went from face-to-face to Zoom. So even though quite a few of our workshops and supervision appointments were cancelled or temporarily postponed, we also picked them back up due to no travel, organising training rooms, venues, or catering. Thank you Zoom. Also, a very big positive was the early development and forethought of Davaar’s Online Training. Yes, we may have wobbled a bit but we continue to grow stronger.
Early this year, Wendy came up with ‘Professional Boundaries Flash Cards’. We designed cards of the alphabet with beautiful scenery per letter. For example, ‘A’ stood for ‘Aware’, ‘Alert’, ‘Appreciate’.
Professional Boundaries Flash Cards
- Aware: refers to self-awareness of the professional in relationship with the client.
- Alert: remain alert to subtle changes in the dynamics of the professional relationship words spoken and behaviour.
- Appreciate: the unique journey that you experience in the professional relationship with clients you see.
This theme continues through to the letter ‘Z’, in full colour and complete with a calico carry bag.
These flashcards were designed to be used to facilitate discussion about boundaries and what different words mean for participants in face-to-face and virtual workshops. A very different approach and one that will be a lot of fun when used. Click one of the images to learn more.
Enter 2022. Wendy will continue focussing on professional boundaries.
Wendy first started teaching the importance of professional boundaries in 2005. The theme she discusses in her podcasts (the Podcast Book is now complete), and in the Safe Professional Boundaries internet tool, resonate with people around the world from a number of different professions including health, teaching, and prison officers. In 2022, at Davaar, we will continue to build on the body of work we already have through a series of videos and other education options.
Something exciting to us that must be mentioned here, and something we are very proud of, is that the professional boundaries podcast has been picked up by the School of Health and Social Care, at Edinburgh Napier University to be used in their curriculum.
2022 will also be the year that Wendy will release a series of videos on professional boundaries. These will be available for 5-minute viewing before deciding to purchase.
Now, a little bit about Wendy that you may not know … she is a passionate Rotarian. She, and her friend Sue, came up with the Charter, Global Nurses & Midwives Rotary Club (GNMRC), which officially kicked off in late December 2020. It is a wonderful and exciting new Rotary chapter and one that I have been honoured to assist Charter President Wendy with developing certificates, guestlists, shirts, posters, videos, etc. At the end of December 2021, we asked members to send short videos of themselves, their family or home which we would put together to celebrate a) One Year of the new club, b) Christmas, and c) Friendship. It was a great review of the year and a lot of fun.
Davaar continues to proudly support GNMRC and projects that the club is doing for nurses & midwives around the world.
In the meantime, whilst isolating at home, my veggie garden hasn’t looked so good in years. An abundance of peas and beans (some of which ended up with the cattle), mini capsicums, and corn. The best part of growing your own is ‘bartering’ with the neighbours. I supply my neighbours with lemons and mangoes, and they exchange with limes, blueberries, and cucumbers.
I sometimes wonder if this is what will continue happening in the foreseeable future with the different strains threatening us. All I need now is a milking cow and a paddock of wheat (and a bread maker!).
Till next blog, stay strong, stay safe.
Debb
Why Rotary for Nurses & Midwives?
Why indeed?
A very special podcast this time – with the exciting news that a new Rotary Club being formed for a very special group. Announcing the new Provisional Global Nurses and Midwives Rotary Club.
Episode #31: Dr Wendy McIntosh on Rotary for Nurses & Midwives
https://nmemporium.com/index.php/2020/10/11/rotary-for-nurses/
Sue Walker (of Nurses for Nurses Network and Nursing CPD Institutex) and Charter Member of Provisional Global Nurses and Midwives Rotary Club poses the question: “… why is our nursing and midwifery voice not being heard where decisions about how health and community services are delivered?” So, why ARE our nursing and midwifery voices not being heard? How do we even start to get people to listen and truly hear what is being said? Wendy has a solution.
In the first half of the podcast, Sue talks to Wendy about her role as a Rotarian. What is involved in becoming a Rotarian? Wendy describes her role, experiences and contribution as a ‘newbie’ Rotarian (joined 2011) who is ‘humbled by being a citizen of the world’. ‘Is there a place for nurses and nursing skills in Rotary’? Wendy takes us on her 30-year journey of nursing & 9 years of Rotary, meeting like-minded enthusiast Sue Walker along the way and together with the leadership group, putting their heads together to form the Global Nursing & Midwives Rotary Club (GNMRC).
In the second half of the podcast, in the discussion between Sue and Nic, the listener learns that 50% of the global health workforce are nurses and midwives, yet the profession’s representation in policymaking, at the political level or in the boardroom is at best… scant. Through volunteering, fundraising, grants, exchange programs, sponsorship – Sue and Nic talk about a perfect platform for lasting change; understanding others’ needs, getting involved and making an impact both locally and internationally.
It IS indeed exciting times. As we come towards the end of the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife the chartering of a Rotary Club specifically for Nurses and Midwives is a great initiative – a global opportunity to join a tribe.
Working together as a team, Sue, Wendy & Nicole Nash-Arnold (Nurse Manager HQ) … you couldn’t find a more interesting and formable combination of passion and experience to introduce this exciting new concept to the world. There’s that ‘e’ word again … exciting. When listening to this episode you can feel the enthusiasm, and yes, again, excitement, our speakers share with their listeners.
As Wendy asked … what’s possible? Let’s be challenged and let’s figure out a way to meet those challenges.
2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife … “This is our Time”.
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