Inspiration

I went to a Cheshire and Mersey best practice event and I heard from loads of amazing speakers, it was like taking a swim in a pool of positive vibes.  One of the speakers was quite funny and didn’t seem very scary.  At the end of the event, I built up the courage to go say Hi and told her about our Preceptorship Programme.  Later she emailed me and we said a real Hello via Teams.  Since then, she’s let me shadow her on one of the projects she is working on all about Leadership and Quality Improvement.  I have never seen the two taught together and they are a very good fit.  The project had a strong focus on Compassionate Leadership which I loved.  It also referenced Kotter and his book ‘Our Iceberg is Melting’, a great book all about change and I always laugh about the penguins that are NoNo’s, don’t we all have a colleague who loves to say No.  This whole event was right up my street and I was so grateful to be included.  Perhaps one day I could do something like that and be someone amazing like her….

I attended ‘Cultivating Courage and Compassion’ run by the Florence Nightingale Foundation aimed at Preceptees (Newly Registered Professionals).  It was a 2-hour virtual session which taught and discussed courage, compassion, belonging.  These are all topics we discuss at Preceptee Workshops and it was very good.  Perhaps one day I could do something virtual like that…

I listed to a podcast with 2 of my fantastic female executives on and it was all about women in leadership.  I loved hearing their stories and I realise how my world looks completely different to how their world must have looked not that long ago.  I thank all the women who have broken down barriers and doors.  They were very inspirational and positive; made you feel like anything was possible.  Perhaps one day I could do something like that, be someone like that…

We Nurses on Twitter have been running #StayAndThrive TweetChats and as I was tweeting, I realised we do so much for our Preceptee’s, which includes our International Nurses.  Once they pass the OSCEs they are ‘new to the NMC register’ and so counted as Preceptee’s although very experienced nurses already.  I then went to bed and woke up early and went for a run and an idea came to me.  Over 100 of my Preceptee’s are International Nurses.  Our Preceptorship Programme includes Nurses, AHPs, Midwives, NAs and APs.  The Midwives and NAs and APs have designated leads.  The AHPs I’ve recently facilitated a feedback and brainstorming session for them.  But I have never done anything bespoke for my internationally trained colleagues…. yet!

I think it was 6am when I wrote an email to the Head of Workforce with this idea.  Bespoke for International Nurses.  Weekly 1hour Teams sessions throughout May.  Listening.  Learning.  Belonging/Identity/Imposter Syndrome.  Leadership/Confidence/Courage.  Career Coaching and Interview Skills. 

Turns out she is an early riser too and emailed back saying great idea, do it! 

I emailed We Nurses to ask if they had heard of anything like this before and if they could they please link me up with some cool people.  Everyone who emailed back was MBE or Head of Something with long email signatures and sounded very fancy.  But they were all super excited, some even want to attend our sessions.  I sent that on to my boss Head of Education and she gave me permission to proceed and thus ‘International Nurses Extraordinary Events’ was born!

I’m on a coaching course and I totally love all my fellow coaches!  We all come from very different backgrounds and have very different jobs.  We’ve just had 2 days virtual teaching and, in that time, we’ve got to coach each other.  I went on course that day full of beans I told them the idea and how the Head of Workforce had just emailed back saying YES.  I was all excited and they were excited for me.  Since then, 3 of them have told me that this has directly had an impact on them and they have gone on to do something they wanted to do or changed mindsets about a project they are on.

Remember the surroundings you immerse yourself in, they have an impact on you.  I don’t know if I would have every got to this idea or had the courage to do it if I had not experienced all these experiences. The moral of this story is perhaps one day you COULD do something like that.  Perhaps today is your day…

Our first every International Nurse Extraordinary Event is being held this Wednesday (please be kind to me computer gremlins!) and at each event I have one of my amazing international colleagues co-hosting with me.  It’s very exciting, I’m ready to immerse myself into it because I know so many of them already and how inspirational they are, I’m excited what the future holds!