ACCYPN 2021 CONFERENCE
SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS REPORT
Congratulations to members Donna Fechner, Inga Clancy, Maria Ronan and Pam O’Nions for being awarded ACCYPN Virtual Conference Grants ($350). Each winner has submitted a report as detailed below.
Donna Fechner – ACCYPN Conference 2021: A Reflection
I am a little disappointed that after the conference postponement last year that it was still necessary to hold the conference virtually due to COVID. Attending my first ACCYPN conference was something I had been looking forward to, the ability to network and build a support system, particularly since having changed roles to an acting management position since registering and developing new knowledge and skills.
I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Darwin and participate via the hub, where around a dozen of us where able to gather, linking into virtual presentations and networking with those attending in person and online. On the first day I was pleased to meet new friends from other states and home state Queenslanders in attendance, some of whom I had recognised from virtual State-wide forums but never having met face to face and amazingly a familiar face from my past.
Eliza and I had attended university together in Darwin in the 90’s and had not really seen each other since as we both followed our different professional paths only to end up in very similar positions in Child Health residing in Queensland (all be it still a 12hr drive away). It was fabulous to reconnect and reminisce on the past and compare how we had arrived in our current roles, also catching up with others from our Uni days who still work & reside in Darwin.
Day one introduced us to Linda Shields perspective of the Past, Present & Future of Paediatric & Child Health Nursing and I must admit to not having given much thought to many of the areas that Linda addressed. Her presentation has roused me to further consider the roles of genomics, precision health, use of AI/Robots and climate change in health care and how this may affect the role of the nurse and how important it is that we, as nurses ensure that we have input into what this future will look like.
Improving Life Outcomes for Children in Early Childhood Education and Care by Sonia Harris was a very insightful presentation and our CH service has been trying to build partnerships with day care centres and playgroups locally in an endeavour to promote development and capture target groups who may otherwise not engage with services. I had no knowledge of this service prior to the presentation and applaud Goodstart Early Learning for being so proactive in this space. After viewing this presentation, I will certainly be advocating further research on how we are able to better engage with similar services locally. Interdisciplinary models of care are integral to optimal health and life outcomes.
Shelley Duffy’s presentation on the Primary School Nurse Health Readiness Program shows the importance of health surveillance and the impacts that often undetected visual variants can have on a child’s development, confidence, and future potential. This program supports early detection and is paramount to minimising adverse outcomes. Having been exposed to the program firsthand and seeing the number of children that are being identified and referred for more formal assessment and intervention, the importance of programs such as this cannot be underestimated.
Rachel Buckley gave a passionate presentation on Addressing the Social Determinates of Health for Young People. Her work in the Territory is inspiring and has potential to make significant change to health outcomes for young people and how a simple tool such as the HEEADSSS assessment can provide such substantial information to better provide holistic care and achieve optimal outcomes if utilised effectively.
Our young people deserve more meaningful conversation and the HEEADSSS assessment provides a stepping-stone to engage in quality conversations with young people. The content & principle behind the HEEADSS assessments could also be useful in having conversations with our families.
Rachel’s presentation combined with the presentation by Maria Ronan on the Paediatric Nurses Understanding of the Role of Health Literacy have changed the way I approach communication with clients and families and encouraged me to do more self-education in these areas.
I particularly enjoyed Liz Crowe’s session on Health Care Professionals Mental Health & Well-Being, having recently taken on a new leadership role that I have found challenging and stressful at times. I feel that the information provided by Liz will benefit both myself, and my team as I work though the trials of the adaption from co-worker to manager within the context of a pandemic and ever-changing goal posts. I have already implemented some of the strategies Liz discussed and particularly like the swarm intelligence and her ABC of wellbeing.
Several more acute paediatric sessions that I thought would not hold much interest to me in my role happily surprised me and I have been able to take something out of every session.
Day two began with the topic of the moment (it’s been a very long moment) COVID-19 and the paediatric Population which was quite relevant in the midst of the Delta outbreaks in the southern states and the increased incidents of Covid positive children. The panel were very knowledgeable and provided excellent information that has significantly improved my knowledge in this area which will enable me to communicate relevant information to our families more effectively. This session segued nicely into the sessions on High Performance in a time of uncertainty and great opportunity for nursing.
As a child health nurse (CHN), midwife & Immunisation Program Nurse (IPN) I was particularly interested in a number of the day two afternoon sessions including Recognising the Contribution of Nurse Immunisers and Nurse led vaccination, and the Important role of the Immunisation Program Nurse in Strengthening Immunisation. In our unit many of the CHN are also IPN’s and have developed relationships with the families that utilise our services. This rapport enables a degree of trust and confidence in information provided regarding immunisation, which can be reinforced and elaborated on over many sessions, promoting optimal uptake of scheduled vaccines.
The presentation Informing the Next Safe Infant Sleep Public Health Campaign: A National Consensus Exercise to Determine Priorities in Supporting Parents of Young Infants blended beautifully with the Responsive Parenting Videos – Empowering Families with Sleep and Feeding Challenges. Ellen Barron Family Centre have again provided excellent evidence-based information, which is easily accessible to families, particularly since the start of the pandemic when some new parents are reluctant to venture out of their homes. Our service has an established relationship with Ellen Barron as they are one of our referral avenues and we regularly promote these sessions and have had positive feedback from those utilising them, so it was great to understand how they have developed the sessions and how we may utilise this process in our own unit.
Are we keeping up? Meeting the needs of the parent in the postnatal period in Queensland. The research suggests that we are not meeting the needs of families in the first thousand days and as health providers we need to do better in this area. It was good to see that this research was conducted over a range of urban, rural and remote environments within public and private obstetric services which gives a clear picture of the many identified gaps in the postnatal and early parenting period. This type of research helps us to look at our services and how we can better plan and engage our clients and the importance of continuity of care to optimise health outcomes.
Karitane Virtual Breastfeeding Clinic is a very relevant topic in the pandemic era and could be extremely beneficial in more rural and remote areas with telehealth really coming to the fore. Breastfeeding in early motherhood can be challenging and in some areas access to lactation support can be almost as challenging. Technological advancement has meant we have a lot of options to provide face to face support without the travel and lactation consultants are able to provide more accurate advise being able to see what is happening rather than having mother describe a situation via voice only phone. Use of the app makes it easily accessible and gives families easy access to resources that are evidence based and provide care at a time that works for the client. It is often more acceptable to the younger generation who are more dependent on social media & technology for advice. This would be amazing for other HHS’s that have large geographical areas to cover.
Challenging Times Requires Responsive Action in Child Health at West Moreton Health Queensland presented by Ann-Maree Sandeman who was present at the Hub in Darwin, has provided inspiration on ways that we may be able to transform our service to provide safe and effective, yet personalised care, to more with less. Working smarter is the key both fiscally and with service provision. Along with the presentation Starting Well Initiative: An integrated pathway of antenatal and postnatal care for families with complex needs in Queensland, it is evident that knowing your target population is essential to be able to effectively provide tools to allow targeted health outcomes.
At the end of day 1 we were all able to go to a local establishment and share some refreshments before heading our own way, many of us to the fabulous Mindil Beach Markets to watch the amazing sun set and enjoy some amazing food.
The presentations discussed above demonstrate the important and diverse roles Children & Young Peoples Nurses play across all age groups and throughout a wide diversity of settings. So much innovation, knowledge and experience demonstrated through these presentations by Nurses for nurses. The options are endless and the future is bright and I can’t wait until 2023 when we can all meet in person back in Darwin.
Inga Clancy
The 2021 ACCYPN conference was held on 15-17th September via a virtual portal. This was the first ACCYPN conference and first virtual conference that I have attended. The conference included presentations covering a comprehensive variety of domains related to child and youth health with several streams running concurrently which well catered to attendees with a wide variety of interests and professional development goals.
While I was initially enormously disappointed at learning our adventure to Darwin was not going to happen this year, myself and a friend/colleague made the most of the disappointing situation by checking into a local hotel together, which I would highly recommend. Delicious food, late night giggles and crisp hotel sheets should be synonymous with conferences. Additionally, the opportunity to support and collaborate with each during the presentations added value to the event and made it more memorable. We kicked off the conference by attending our local networking dinner and it was fun to meet with other members. The meeting hub was a favourite of mine which randomly connected us to each other in small groups for a set time limit- it was like the networking equivalent of speed dating. The opportunity to re-watch presentations or catch up on others that we didn’t link into is useful with the ongoing access to the virtual portal. Covid, you have taken our freedom but you will never take our Conference!
Maria Ronan
“Recognising the contribution of children and young people’s nurses “was a conference planned for 2020 in the international year of the nurse, delayed by Covid-19. The delay in the conference by a year has seen many changes, with nurses leading the way in health care and adapting to meet the needs of the population in a once in a lifetime pandemic. This is an opportunity for change and each of the talks highlighted how advanced nursing has become but yet we have more goals to achieve. A review of nursing in the past, present and the future provided insight into how far nursing has come as a profession. Nurses have always had an impact on the provision of health care and improvements throughout history in child health and paediatrics. Sr. Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who fought to be heard on her ideas for children with polio could not get the medical profession interested in 1934 in the opinion of a nurse. She kept fighting to be heard and eventually her ideas were accepted in America, where today they still have clinic’s in her name, revolutionising care in rehabilitation. Nurses continue to directly impact on the health of children and as Dr Linda Shields quoted from Sr. Kenny “some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route”. And yet here we are in a pandemic, with nurse immunizers available and able to give immunisations and yet the current clinics are set up by G. P’s and pharmacist. Where is the nurse led clinics and has anyone listened to the nurses? Lobbying occurs but nobody’s listening in Australia. Other countries have gone forward in this area and nursing needs to shout louder and take a more dominate role in health care or Sr. Kenny may see more nurses heading to America (Pandemic permitting!)
The conference themes of strengthening the workforce, clinical paediatrics, and nurse led models of care/Integrated interdisciplinary models of care were well represented by research, changes in practice and innovative new models of care that result in better health outcomes for children and young people and look at new and emerging needs of nursing, both in Australia and internationally. Callan Battley, Executive Director of Nursing services at Children’s Health Queensland calls for nurses to be fearless, to make a goal for our profession and be more influential in government and policy to improve the health outcomes for children and young people. Nurse need to be a catalyst for change, nurses need to measure change in a diversity of ways but ensure the success is celebrated and shared and our health services need to embrace the indigenous workforce to help improve health outcomes for our vulnerable populations. And Liz Crowe asks that we look after ourselves. As we go forward in a time of a pandemic look after your wellbeing but have information on how this might look. “Often people use the phrase burnout when referring wellbeing. Burnout is not on a continuum for wellbeing – the opposite of burnout is engagement. Emotional exhaustion, Depersonalisation or cynicism and how successful you feel at your job.” Most of us are emotional exhausted with demands of work, home, study and our organisations expectation and that of family. Look after yourself by having knowledge on “Swarm intelligence”.
“Darwin, a place to be in 2023”
Pam O’Nions
The ACCYPN Conference was fantastic, having the boarder open between WA and NT was a bonus and am so pleased that a Darwin Hub was offered. It was fantastic to join the conference virtually together. The hub was a bonus event, which I truly appreciated and have donated my grant to support the hub costs.
The vibe was fantastic and the room just right. We were privileged to have some of the speakers in the room, so interesting watching them on the screen and having them madly typing away as the questions flowed in the on-line chat. The on-line interaction was excellent, maybe even more than what we would have been able to do as a face-to-face event.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of the presentations, finding them interesting informative and thought provoking. I would like to thank each and every presenter as they seamlessly adapted to a virtual delivery. To Jacquie and the committee thanks for pulling such a great agenda and event together and Martin and the team for delivering such a great event.
