Leadership Scholarship: Teenage & Young Adult Cancer Care.
My Leadership scholarship was made possible through the support of The Florence Nightingale Foundation and Teenage Cancer Trust. A huge thank you to both Liz Robb and Simon Fuller for affording me an incredible opportunity to develop both personally and professionally. Thank you to a wonderful mentor Dame Elizabeth Fradd for sharing her wisdom and keeping me motivated through a difficult journey. Finally a massive thank you to Sue Machell for her superb coaching and keeping me grounded throughout.
The Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholarship provides an exceptional opportunity for senior nurses to further develop. The scholarship has allowed me the time, personal space, support and financial assistance to undertake a personal and professional development journey over the past eighteen months; which has been life changing and enabled me to adjust effectively within my current role and career path.
The broad aims of the scholarship are :-
Personal Leadership development
Career Leadership objectives
Project/service improvement/practice development
The Scholarship provided unique insight into my development needs through an initial in depth personal assessment and open and honest peer feedback. Assessment of political astuteness and emotional intelligence was particularly useful. Reflection on the feedback was used as the foundation to work with my coach to develop a bespoke program to facilitate my personal and professional growth.
Structured learning opportunities were provided through the Westminster experience, Co-Consulting Group and the LCOR. These programmes proved extremely valuable; in particular; the application of theory to practice, insight into politics and the importance of learning through sharing with senior colleagues in a supportive forum.
I spent a challenging but life changing week at Ashridge Business School undertaking the Leadership process. Fellow delegates were from across the globe and from all settings. The course was essentially aimed at understanding personal leadership skills and style through a personal journey; exposing your weaknesses and areas for development and providing the tools and confidence to build on these development needs; to enhance leadership effectiveness. I gained valuable learning from working and sharing with other senior leaders and it allowed me the “headspace” to really reflect on my career development and future. During my week at Ashridge I experienced many “light bulb” moments that helped me make sense of personal, professional and organisational challenges. Of particular interest was specific learning and understanding around team dynamics and organisational culture.
The Florence Scholarship came at a particularly challenging time both personally and professionally. Moving from a lifelong career in the NHS to the Independent sector shortly before commencing the scholarship; resulted in professional challenges; particularly around ways of working and understanding new cultures. The Scholarship and learning it provided were crucial in equipping me with the understanding, tools and resilience to adapt and as a consequence developed a new personal thirst for knowledge and understanding particularly around organisations and their culture.
The service and practice improvement project involved a significant amount of time and effort for me both personally; together with the commitment, support and expertise of the core Project team of senior colleagues who assisted me. The project focused on the development of the national competence and career framework in teenage and young adult cancer nursing. The project engaged with over one hundred and fifty nurses working with young people with cancer in all healthcare settings and followed a robust process to reach agreed consensus on the core knowledge and skills framework that defines the required competencies for nursing in this field. The Framework has been endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing, has been recently published and was launched at the 9th International Teenage Cancer Conference in July this year. The framework has created much interest amongst international colleagues and will be adapted and/or translated by numerous countries in developing their own frameworks for nurses working in TYA cancer care.
Professional development and expanding my professional network was central to my scholarship and crucial to gaining critical feedback as well as professional peer support and mentoring. Professional networks play a fundamental role in keeping abreast of contemporary healthcare and continuous learning and knowledge acquisition. During my scholarship I developed national and international networks through numerous and varied travel opportunities including Istanbul, Amsterdam, United States and Dublin. Through these initiatives I have been able to develop strong professional links and form collaborative partnership working and initiatives with International organisations and individuals particularly around TYA cancer education, training and research.
The scholarship in its entirety has been enlightening and particularly powerful to my personal development. I have matured through insight and personal learning, with the support of experienced and senior nurse leaders. The unsettling nature of in depth personal analysis, feedback and critical self-analysis has allowed me to take stock of where I am in my career and have confidence and self belief as a leader in the future.