“Seniors in the Suburbs”: Understanding belonging & community connection - together!

Investigators: Sonja Jakubec, Marg Olfert, Lisa Choi, Nicole Dawe. Contributors: Anna Mollo, Dwayne Sheehan, Cynthia Watson.The roles of place & belonging on wellbeing are increasingly understood. Seniors are increasingly living in suburbs – though little is known about the strengths, strategies and struggles! The views of seniors were the place for Vivo to begin to understand how to work together. This study asked: What does belonging mean to seniors in Calgary’s NE/Central suburbs? What are the facilitators & barriers? What could belonging look like for seniors in the suburbs

Taking the Quantum Leap: Arts-Based Learning as a Gateway into Exploring Transition for Senior Nursing Students

In a senior-baccalaureate nursing program, a student’s journey of transition to becoming a Registered Nurse is fraught with institutional and relational tensions. In a fourth-year capstone theory course focused on issues and trends in nursing leadership, we explored these tensions through arts-based learning activities. Through the theoretical lens of Janzen’s (2013) Quantum Perspective of Learning, reflective narratives illuminated student experiences of the transition and into the unknown. Our goal to inspire, to nurture, and to empower students to take their own quantum leaps took them into finite career spaces and the infinite spaces in-between and beyond

Assessing the FACTS: A Mnemonic for Teaching and Learning the Rapid Assessment of Rigor in Qualitative Research Studies

Teaching and learning research appraisal strategies is a challenge in undergraduate education and for practitioners alike. The appraisal of rigor in qualitative research papers is particularly complex and sophisticated work for many undergraduate research students and practitioners who want to develop their critical reading skills. The mnemonic strategy (The FACTS) explained in this paper is one pedagogical strategy for establishing a simplified approach to teaching and learning the appraisal of rigor in qualitative research. While not a comprehensive tool, the FACTS are a useful introduction to the complex challenge of qualitative research appraisal

Quiet Lampshade in the Corner? Exploring Fourth Year Nursing Students\u27 Narratives of Transition to Professional Practice

Recruitment and retention issues continue to be prevalent in all domains of nursing practice. Nursing students’ transition into practice is an understudied area of this concern. This study specifically explored the question: How do fourth year nursing students make meaning of their transition to professional practice? Data was collected from twenty-two field note journals and seven face-face interviews emerging from a capstone nursing theory course focused on nursing leadership, relational ethics, complex healthcare contexts and responsive action. For the participants of this study, the meaning of transitioning to practice manifested as: developing complex identity awareness, mediating expectations in the struggle with uncertainty; and longing to belong in the midst of feeling alien. The paper provides recommendations for pedagogical practice and for capacity building to bridge the tensions of the competing discourses of transition to professional practice within complex health care settings. Résumé Les difficultés de recrutement et de rétention continuent d’être répandues dans tous les domaines de la pratique infirmière. La transition des étudiantes infirmières vers la pratique professionnelle est un domaine sous-étudié de cette problématique. Cette étude a exploré plus particulièrement la question suivante : comment des étudiantes de quatrième année en sciences infirmières donnent-elles un sens à leur transition vers la pratique professionnelle? Les données ont été recueillies à partir de vingt-deux journaux de bord et sept entrevues en personne, suite à un cours de synthèse des fondements de la discipline infirmière avec un accent sur le leadership en sciences infirmières, l’éthique relationnelle, les contextes complexes de soins de santé et les actions requises. Les participantes de cette étude donnent les significations suivantes à leur transition vers la pratique : développer une prise de conscience identitaire complexe, gérer les attentes tout en combattant l’incertitude et désirer faire partie du groupe dans un contexte où l’on se sent étranger. L’article fait des recommandations pour la pratique pédagogique et pour le renforcement des capacités afin de combler le fossé entre les deux discours à la base de la transition vers la pratique professionnelle dans des contextes complexes de soins de santé

“You Want Me to Come to Your Office?!”: Student experiences of Moving from Failure to Success in a Nursing Course

The experiences of undergraduate nursing students facing and overcoming failure in their coursework must be understood in order for nurse educators to effectively engage and provide supportive strategies to their students. A student-centred learning perspective and interpretive phenomenological approach to research frames this study of ten students’ accounts of their experiences from failure to success in a second year nursing course. Central themes include: Feeling Uncomfortable, Finding Confidence, and Cultivating a New Identity. Seeking feedback and building study habits and central to the students\u27 pursuit of confidence and new identity formation. Implications for nurse educators’ proactive engagement with students identified as being ‘at risk’ are discussed and strategies proposed. Individualized, student-centred, and focused feedback forged from trusted student-instructor relationships appear to be central strategies to assist the transition between failure and success. Résumé La compréhension des expériences des étudiants en sciences infirmières de premier cycle qui ont été confrontées à un échec dans un cours et qui l’ont surmonté permettrait aux infirmières enseignantes de soutenir efficacement et de fournir des stratégies d’apprentissage à leurs étudiantes. Développée selon une perspective d’apprentissage centrée sur l’étudiante et menée grâce à une approche de recherche phénoménologique interprétative, cette étude porte sur le récit de dix étudiantes de deuxième année en sciences infirmières de leurs expériences d’échec puis de réussite d’un cours. Les thèmes centraux suivants ont été identifiés: se sentir mal à l\u27aise, trouver la confiance en soi et cultiver une nouvelle identité. Chercher à obtenir de la rétroaction et construire des habitudes d’études sont au cœur de la quête des étudiantes d’une confiance en soi et d’une formation d’une nouvelle identité. Les implications pour un engagement proactif des infirmières enseignantes auprès des étudiantes considérées comme étant « à risque » sont discutées et des stratégies sont proposées. Basée sur la relation de confiance entre l’étudiante et l’enseignante, la rétroaction ciblée, personnalisée et centrée sur l’étudiante est au cœur des stratégies essentielles pour faciliter la transition entre l’échec et la réussite

The \u27Healthy Parks-Healthy People\u27 Movement in Canada: Progress, Challenges, and an Emerging Knowledge and Action Agenda

In this article, we outline progress and challenges in establishing effective health promotion tied to visitor experiences provided by protected and conserved areas in Canada. Despite an expanding global evidence base, case studies focused on aspects of health and well-being within Canada’s protected and conserved areas remain limited. Data pertaining to motivations, barriers and experiences of visitors are often not collected by governing agencies and, if collected, are not made generally available or reported on. There is an obvious, large gap in research and action focused on the needs and rights of groups facing systemic barriers related to a variety of issues including, but not limited to, access, nature experiences, and needs with respect to health and well-being outcomes. Activation of programmes at the site level continue to grow, and Park Prescription programmes, as well as changes to the Accessible Canada Act, represent significant, positive examples of recent cross-sector policy integration. Evaluations of outcomes associated with HPHP programmes have not yet occurred but will be important to adapting interventions and informing cross-sector capacity building. We conclude by providing an overview of gaps in evidence and practice that, if addressed, can lead to more effective human health promotion vis-à-vis nature contact in protected and conserved areas in Canada

Mental Health Research and Cultural Dominance: An Analysis of the Social Construction of Knowledge for International Development

This institutional ethnographic work uses the first author’s experience as an international development worker, educator, and community mental health nurse in West Africa to illustrate how official research and policy on mental health services reflect Western academic, corporate, economic, and cultural dominance. Focusing on a critical textual analysis of a survey intended to support funding applications to international aid/lending agencies, the authors show how official processes privilege Western policies/research approaches and subordinate local perspectives. If nurses, researchers, and policy-makers are to be effective in carrying out development work in Africa, they must learn to appreciate the subtle exertion of dominance inherent in Western approaches.The authors propose that understanding local knowledge be foregrounded rather than backgrounded to the complex global interpretive frames for international research and international development policy

Out of the multiple margins: Older women’s experiences of health care

This feminist phenomenological study explores the meaning of older women’s experiences as they negotiate health care. Several interviews with diverse groups of older women (immigrant, First Nations, and Japanese-Canadian women and those involved in community and social clubs) reveal that negotiating to have their health needs met was a challenging process requiring mutual support.Their health-care experiences were influenced by issues surrounding access to services, power, and poverty. For many participants, the conversational interview format served to inspire consciousness-raising, activism, and reflection.The findings suggest that such reflection may help other women to understand the “multiple margins” (being older, being a woman, being a member of a visible minority) that constrain and challenge their access to health care

Tilling the garden of joy/sorrow: A poetic inquiry into the rhizomatic complexities of growing into and through collective spaces

A pilot research project turned ongoing program sought to explore the experience of participating in an inclusive Campus Community Garden. In the confines of institutional research the project undertook a specific focus on uncovering the perceived benefits and barriers to participating preschoolers, older adults, individuals with mixed abilities and their caregivers from residential and intermediate care facilities. This paper describes a parallel exploration as an occurrent act of art making; an evolving rhizomatic process of poetic reflection on images and privileged notes from the field. In this work, the authors uncover the shape, movement, and colour of the joy/sorrow of tilling the garden through creative expression