Bringing Coaching Psychology to Nursing

Workshop Report

Coaching 360 – preceptorship and leadership development for registered nurses in Hong Kong, 19th December 2012

135 registered nurses from different hospitals and Universities attended the above workshop, which was arranged by the Hong Kong College of Education and Research in Nursing. This was one of the direct outcomes from my keynote at the 3rd International Orthopaedic Nursing Conference in Malta last October, where I was invited to give a talk/workshop at The United Christian Hospital in Hong Kong (See the previous conference report). My aims were twofold: to promote coaching psychology (UEL MSc Programme in particular) in Hong Kong and in the health sector which forms part of a wider initiative of promoting coaching psychology for nursing. From the hospital’s perspective, the workshop aims to show how coaching psychology can be used to 1) train and develop preceptors to become more effective in coaching the preceptees in the preceptorship programme; 2) develop leadership quality in both junior and senior nurses so that they can readily implement new nursing initiatives.

Knowledge transfer - Opportunities for nurses to develop coaching skills

The preceptorship and leadership development were the two major aspects identified as potential coaching applications. Preceptors are registered nurses (with minimum two years of clinical experience) who are responsible to guide, teach and coach the preceptees ( nurses who have just graduated from the institute and is not familiar to the clinical environment). In this preceptor-preceptee relationship, different approaches may be used in coaching and mentoring the preceptee. Coaching psychology can also help junior staff to facilitate new nursing initiatives which may be applicable to their clinical area.

Outcome

1. Evaluation: User satisfaction survey – 135 evaluation forms were distributed after the workshop and 68 were returned. All participants (100%) agreed that the workshop had been run in a well organized manner; 97% agreed that materials in the workshop were presented clearly. Over 90% of participants agreed that the objectives of the workshop had been made clear. 91% of participants agreed that the overall subjects in the workshop were easy to understand and the workshop was practical for use in the workplace.

2. UEL student recruitment – 200 leaflets for the MSc Coaching Psychology Distance Learning (DL) Programme were distributed to the participating hospitals. After the workshop, one participant – Dr Iren Wong, Head of School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital (the former Associate Professor at City University of Hong Kong) came and thanked me for the workshop. She subsequently applied and enrolled onto the MSc Coaching Psychology (DL) Programme, just in time to start in Semester B. There were a number of enquiries shortly after the workshop. It is expected the number of applications will follow for Semester A this September. Overall for Semester B, 13 new applicants have enrolled onto the MSc Coaching Psychology (DL) Programme (in comparison with Semester B last year, when there were 6) – this represents an overall increase by more than 100% in the number of DL students (well above the School’s target)! Together with the existing DL students, this brings the total number to 48.

Wider impact and future initiatives

1. Publication – the paper based on the Keynote at the Maltese conference was accepted and published by the International Coaching Psychology Review this Spring.

2. Esencija Sestrinstva First Nursing Symposium – I was invited to be a member of the Scientific Committee of the Symposium, and present a Keynote at the Symposium on 12 – 14 April 2013 at Marija Bistrica, Croatia.

3. The creative use of Moodle and the development of online learning project – In response to the above call, I have drafted two bids and sent them to the Subject Leader on Developing an online VLE Management System (VLE- MS) and Creation of a new Coaching Psychology short course for CPD to further advance the DL provision on Coaching Psychology and improve students’ learning experience. Further comments and support to take these forward are welcome.

4. Student Testimonials and future marketing - I have now received two testimonials from our former MSc students about the experience of their studies with UEL. I would welcome further advice from colleagues about how to take these forward and capitalise on this marketing opportunity.

Dr Ho Law PhD CPsychol CSci CMgr MISCP(Accred) AFBPsS; FCMI; FHEA

School of Psychology

Email: law2@uel.ac.uk

Date of the report: 09 February 2013