Care of the older person: the power of positive innovation to shape the future of nursing.

Abstract

In 2018, as part of an initiative to revamp the Transition to Practice program for our Graduate nurses, Beaufort Skipton Health, in partnership with Ballarat Health Services, launched a new project that looked to fulfil graduate nurse’s first year requirements whilst incorporating a focus on caring for the older generation. The program was designed to facilitate skill and knowledge consolidation, scaffold learning, expand graduates critical thinking, and to challenge the older care paradigms that result in negative attitudes to working with this demographic. In 2019 the success of the project has resulted in the cohort growing from 10 to 31 participants, incorporation of graduates from an additional 4 rural healthcare organisations within the Grampians Region and affiliation with Australian Catholic University. This collaboration with ACU results in the graduates completing the program with either 2 units towards a post graduate qualification in gerontology or a completed Certificate in Extended Clinical Nursing – Gerontology with option to continue studying towards a Masters degree. Another initiative incorporated in 2019 is the expansion of the COOPs program into Correctional Health with 2 graduates in the cohort being employed in collaboration with Corrections Victoria. As the momentum grows, the impact of this program on the shaping of career progression and disempowering of associated stigma has been fundamental in beginning to alter perceptions and challenge newly graduated nurse’s beliefs that working with the older person is not ‘real’ nursing, does not add value to their careers, and is generally undesirable. The increase in participants and Health Services engagement would support the value of this program in morphing nursing perceptions of Caring for the Older Person into one of value, relevance and significance within the Nursing Field.