Promoting the life stories of older people in nursing care homes: A collaborative writing project between student nurses and care home residents
N.B. The information below is authored by the mini-project applicants, not by staff of the subject centre. This text represents the views and opinions of the mini-project team only, not those of the subject centre or its affiliates.
Principal investigator
Dr Karen Spilsbury, Department of Health Sciences, University of York. email: ks25@york.ac.uk
Full list of project partners
Dr John Issitt, University of York *This project will be hosted by the department of Health Sciences
Topic
Education in Practice and Work-based Learning
Background
The project aims to facilitate production of a book by University of York nursing students whilst on clinical placement in care home settings. The book will be a collaboration between student nurses and care home residents and will contain chapters recording an aspect or event in the life of residents. Using well developed techniques from oral history, nursing students will work closely with care home residents to develop these accounts.
The book, produced by the student nurses, will contain approximately 6 chapters each written by a different student working with a different resident. As such, the project encourages student nurses to engage with care home residents as individuals with life experiences and stories to tell rather than simply seeing the older person as in need of nursing care. The project provides an opportunity for residents to present a part of their life that may go largely ignored within the care home setting and enables students to engage with residents and reflect on the humanity and history their stories reveal. Situational and experiential learning is considered more valuable for the learner and ensures a high degree of relevance for students. Guiding and facilitating student nurses to engage with and actively develop this writing project will help them contextualise and conceptualise new learning which will help them develop as practitioners. In addition, the book will present stories from residents who may, over time, deteriorate in their physical and mental health. As such, the books will present care homes with material which could be used to inform nursing staff about the residents that they are caring for through the words of a resident who is no longer able to share their stories. This will promote the dignity of these residents and help care home staff to engage in care delivery sensitive to the individual.
Alongside development of this project we will carry out an evaluation of the processes of the project to gain understanding about:
1. key facilitators and barriers to the project; and
2. the experiences of key stakeholders involved in the project (care home residents and their family and friends, nursing home staff, student nurses and university lecturing staff
The evaluation will involve observation and recording of any project meetings and interviews with key stakeholders. Main findings will be used to inform further developments of collaborative writing projects and disseminated to care home practitioners, managers, commissioners, policy makers and higher education through peer reviewed publications.
There are considerable potential benefits to be realised in the process of the project but the end product of book provides something that is tangible, valuable and long lasting. This will be produced and disseminated to those involved in the project. Depending on the outcomes of the project there may be further opportunities both to develop educational tools which may be of wider value and relevance to higher education and to extend the project further within nursing, other academic disciplines (for example English students) and care in general.
Proposed activities
John is a NTFS who has facilitated 5 collaboratively student books.
A Different Voice (2003) Students of the University of York
Education: Insights and Insights (2004) Students of the University of York
Making Waves in Education (2007) Students of the University of York and Plymouth
Visions of Childhood (2007) Students of the University of Roehampton
Paleao: Interdisciplinary approaches to reconstructing the past (2008) International post-graduate students at the University of York (EU funded)
He is currently half way through a similar project 0 Leche – the emergence of lactose dependancy in early civilizations – involving 13 European universites and students (EU Funded).
Karen is a Registered Nurse and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. She has extensive experience supporting and supervising students and has developed a portfolio of research on nursing workforce and quality of care.
Proposed outcomes
The process of writing, organising and compiling the eventual book from such chapters offers the following outcomes:
• A potential aid in the care of nursing homes residents
• A tool for teaching student nurses and promoting experiential learning
• A wonderful piece of creative work to which a wide range of persons will contribute and benefit, including care home residents and their family and friends, student nurses, care home nursing staff and university lecturing staff
• An impressive testament and advertisement of the work of the care home
• A mechanism for the development of student’s listening, recording and writing skills
• A celebration of the resident’s life offering long-term benefits for the resident, their friends and loved ones
• A record and personal narrative of a resident’s life, informed by the resident themselves, that will aid the work of future care home nursing staff
• An opportunity for students and personnel from other disciplines to help in the textual and graphic design features of book production
• An opportunity to promote engagement between university lecturers and clinical nursing staff to support the students and the residents in the development of the project and develop positive learning environments
• An opportunity to develop new pedagogies promoting ownership and responsibility in the student body
Expertise of grant holder and project team
Similar work
The increase in the use of nursing homes for clinical placements for nursing students in the UK and internationally,1 offer student nurses rewarding and rich learning experiences. With an increasing older population, we need to prepare nurses with clinical and social skills to meet the complex needs of older people that they will encounter across a variety of health and social care settings. However, nursing home placements are often not liked by students, who appear to favour hospital-based placements.2 This may be linked to negative views about older people and the impression that nursing work in care homes is ‘basic’ and ‘non-specialist’.3 One of the objectives of this project is to tackle such negative impressions by ensuring that the quality of a clinical placement is supported by opportunities for creative, collaborative and rich student learning. The collaborative framework and support provided by University-based nursing lecturers working with clinical nurses in the care home setting has potential to enhance the student experience and encourage the development of learning organisations that can influence both care delivery and quality.4 The idea of collaborative writing projects in care homes between student nurses and care home residents fits the idea of partnership working and the development of standards to support learning and assessment in practice.5 Situational and experiential learning is considered more valuable for the learner and ensures a high degree of relevance.6,7
References
1Kerridge JL. (2008) Supporting student nurses on placement in nursing homes: The challenges for the link-tutor role. Nurse Education in Practice 8, 389-396
2Happell B. (2002) When I grow up I want to be a...? Where undergraduate student nurses want to work after graduation. Journal of Advanced Nursing 29, 499-505
3Richardson E, Humphries B, Fuggle K, Barber M, Shepherd P, Druce J. (2001) Student placements in the nursing home setting, Nursing Standard 16, 39–44
4Davis HTO and Nutley SM. (2000) Developing learning organisations in the new NHS. BMJ 320, 998-1001
5NMC. (2004) Standards of proficiency for pre-registration nursing education. NMC, London http://www.nmc-uk.org [accessed 29 August 2009]
6Lave J and Wenger E. (1991) Situated Learning. Cambridge University Press
7Kolb D. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Contact details
Grant holder: Dr John Issitt, University of York UK
Amount awarded: £5,000