First year student nurses are increasingly undertaking their first placement with community nurses. The importance of how this initial learning experience is introduced by the higher education institution, as well as how the student is welcomed and integrated into the community nursing team, cannot be underestimated. Following positive anonymous feedback from students, which indicated that they had benefitted from the introduction, welcome and integration they experienced, the university and mentors reviewed how this had been done to identify good practice to share with colleagues. Students indicated that their welcome and integration had helped them to feel part of the team and enhanced learning, because they were so well supported, and mentors had facilitated learning experiences by acknowledging that this was their first placement experience. It is notable that mentors were committed to the students' learning and used workplace social capital to optimise the student experience. At a time when retention of students is essential to increase the future workforce, mentors dedicated to student learning are acting as ambassadors for the community workforce, and may well encourage students to have a career in community nursing.
Students who demonstrate quiet incivility can be challenging and disrupt the learning that takes place in the community setting. Recognising incivility and acting to address this behaviour with students is difficult because the behaviour is not overt or obvious to others. The most important component in attempting to manage incivility is exploring the behaviour with the student to identify the potential cause, and negotiate a strategy to improve it. It is acknowledged that the behaviour may be due to personal, academic, or professional issues. If issues are not addressed, care activity and learning are affected, and this can result in failure to achieve in practice.
Given the need to facilitate and manage care, making every consultation count, knowledge of-and working with-different professional care providers is essential. To optimise care outcomes for clients, the adoption of interprofessional working is essential. This article describes how interprofessional learning was embedded in a community nursing practice placement environment with student nurses and students from other professions.
Preparing for a Nursing and Midwifery Council placement monitoring visit can appear daunting if practitioners have not previously participated in the process. This paper identifies why visits are required and how practitioners and the local higher education provider representatives can work together to prepare. Based on the experience of the authors it is proposed that the visit is an opportunity to disseminate good practice linked to the education and mentorship of students. Suggestions linked to successful preparation are also shared to assist community nurse teams who encounter the process in the future. It is advocated that feedback from the visit can be used to further strengthen the practice learning experience for both mentors and students.
Seeking service user feedback for student nurses who are engaged in community learning experiences is an important part of a mentor's role. This paper discusses what is currently advocated, the mentor's role in obtaining and managing feedback and makes recommendations to improve the process in the community practice setting.
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