scholarly journals Development of a career and competency framework for Occupational Health Nurses working in New Zealand using participatory action research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stella Mary Howard
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Career Planning ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Competency Framework ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Health Nursing ◽  
Occupational Health Nursing

<p>This participatory action research (PAR) study was undertaken to review the New Zealand Competencies for Practising as an Occupational and Environmental Health Nurse (2004) document and develop an integrated career and competency framework for nurses working in the field of occupational health. The 2004 competency document needed to be reviewed to ensure Occupational Health Nurses (OHNs) have up-to-date guidelines for the skills and knowledge required by businesses to support and promote the health and wellbeing of the workforce, as well as enabling OHNs to identify their training requirements and career planning.  Eight OHNs (including myself) from Christchurch over a 10-month period applied a PAR approach to this qualitative study. The nurses actively engaged in the project from research design to dissemination so linking theory and practice. Achieving the aims and objectives required collaboration, democratic participation, joint decision making, sharing resources, gaining knowledge, and empowerment. The study had six phases. Recruitment of the OHNs occurred during the first phase and in the second phase information was collected through a questionnaire gaining awareness of the OHNs role within the workplace. This information stimulated the first action cycle inquiry. During the third phase data was collected from transcripts of the PAR group meetings. The fourth phase was reflection of the PAR theoretical process of the study. This reflection included understanding what occurred leading to the turning points and what sustained the PAR group. From this phase, evolved phase five, formation of a sub-PAR group, and phase six of the study when the original PAR group reconvened and four subsequent meetings were held concluding the study in May 2015. The study provides contribution to PAR by showing importance of the time commitment of homogenous co-researchers, and role of primary researcher.  A number of areas were identified by the nurses as important skills and knowledge areas for occupational health nursing. Areas include fitness for work, health promotion, risk assessment, legislation and standards, leadership and management skills, research and professionalism. These skills and knowledge topics were then expanded and applied into the career framework from competent to expert nurse. The final participatory cycle involved distributing the framework to the New Zealand Occupational Health Nurses Association to complete the review. The outcome of this research is an integrated occupational health nursing competency and career framework which has been disseminated nationally to New Zealand OHNs waiting for feedback. It is expected that the framework will raise the profile of OHNs within New Zealand, and the vital contribution they make to the public health strategy and supporting businesses to apply employment legislation.</p>

scholarly journals Development of a career and competency framework for Occupational Health Nurses working in New Zealand using participatory action research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stella Mary Howard
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Career Planning ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Competency Framework ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Health Nursing ◽  
Occupational Health Nursing

<p>This participatory action research (PAR) study was undertaken to review the New Zealand Competencies for Practising as an Occupational and Environmental Health Nurse (2004) document and develop an integrated career and competency framework for nurses working in the field of occupational health. The 2004 competency document needed to be reviewed to ensure Occupational Health Nurses (OHNs) have up-to-date guidelines for the skills and knowledge required by businesses to support and promote the health and wellbeing of the workforce, as well as enabling OHNs to identify their training requirements and career planning.  Eight OHNs (including myself) from Christchurch over a 10-month period applied a PAR approach to this qualitative study. The nurses actively engaged in the project from research design to dissemination so linking theory and practice. Achieving the aims and objectives required collaboration, democratic participation, joint decision making, sharing resources, gaining knowledge, and empowerment. The study had six phases. Recruitment of the OHNs occurred during the first phase and in the second phase information was collected through a questionnaire gaining awareness of the OHNs role within the workplace. This information stimulated the first action cycle inquiry. During the third phase data was collected from transcripts of the PAR group meetings. The fourth phase was reflection of the PAR theoretical process of the study. This reflection included understanding what occurred leading to the turning points and what sustained the PAR group. From this phase, evolved phase five, formation of a sub-PAR group, and phase six of the study when the original PAR group reconvened and four subsequent meetings were held concluding the study in May 2015. The study provides contribution to PAR by showing importance of the time commitment of homogenous co-researchers, and role of primary researcher.  A number of areas were identified by the nurses as important skills and knowledge areas for occupational health nursing. Areas include fitness for work, health promotion, risk assessment, legislation and standards, leadership and management skills, research and professionalism. These skills and knowledge topics were then expanded and applied into the career framework from competent to expert nurse. The final participatory cycle involved distributing the framework to the New Zealand Occupational Health Nurses Association to complete the review. The outcome of this research is an integrated occupational health nursing competency and career framework which has been disseminated nationally to New Zealand OHNs waiting for feedback. It is expected that the framework will raise the profile of OHNs within New Zealand, and the vital contribution they make to the public health strategy and supporting businesses to apply employment legislation.</p>

scholarly journals Church Involvement in Education for Sustainability: Using Participatory Action Research to Design a Faith-Based Education for Sustainability Programme in a Christian Community, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Xiaoming Gong
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Faith Based

<p>This study develops and analyses a faith-based education for sustainability (EFS) programme as a means of addressing the issue of climate change in an urban Christian community â St Johnâ s in the City, Presbyterian Church, Wellington, New Zealand. It also, explores a participatory design and practice process for an adult-focused community EFS programme within a Christian context. The outcome of the study may serve as a model of adult-focused community of EFS which can be used by other faith-based communities in New Zealand. The critical approach, which is considered as an important approach to EFS, aims to achieve social change by fostering critical thinking in relation to sustainable issues. However, the so-called rhetoric-reality gap of critical approach causes difficulty for practicing the approach. As such, it was hoped that this study, informed by Freirian critical pedagogy, bridges the â rhetoric-realityâ gap of the critical approach in EFS practice. The methodology of this research â participatory action research (PAR) â aims to empower participants by involving them as co-researchers in the research process. Combined with group discussion and in-depth individual interview, participatory method â diagramming was used as the main research method. The PAR methodology was proved effective for the faith-based EFS programme design and it was also represented a democratic EFS process in itself. Therefore, it informed the subsequent practice of the St Johnâ s programme that was designed by this research as an action research (AR) project and also functioned as a dialogical education programme. In the St Johnâ s programme, the participants as discursive subjects would gain freedom to critically enquire their relationships with Godâ s world and with each other and would be facilitated to take realistic actions on sustainable issues associated with climate change through the critical enquiry.</p>

scholarly journals Kangaroo Mother Care: Participatory Action Research within a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rebecca Bear
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Kangaroo Mother Care ◽  
World Health ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand

<p>Human infants share common biological and developmental needs in the postnatal period that are optimally met during intimate contact with their mother or primary caregiver. In the case of infants hospitalised in tertiary-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), there is a departure from instinctual caregiving and nurturing found in the mother-infant pair, due in part, to a model of care which supports maternal-infant separation. This can lead to suboptimal physiological responses, altered neurobiology and life-long negative health effects. The social construction of neonatal care currently positions it within the paradigm of biomedical science. Where family-centred, developmental care frameworks have been integrated, and Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) has been embedded into caregiving routines, enhanced patient, whānau/family, staff and organisational outcomes have been found.   This study is underpinned by the importance of KMC for the enhancement of infant and whānau/families’ health and developmental outcomes. Despite its classification as an evidence-based practice, and recommendations by the World Health Organisation for its use in all healthcare settings, KMC is inconsistently applied. The highly complex and contextual nature of the environments where medically-dependent babies are cared for is acknowledged. There is a need for health services to explore innovative research approaches, through a social science lens, to assist in the implementation of KMC. This thesis illustrates one such approach.  The purpose of this study was to explore and activate improvement of the KMC programme within one NICU in Aotearoa New Zealand using Participatory Action Research (PAR). The research was theoretically informed by Als’ developmental biology and care theories, D’Agata’s Infant Medical Trauma model, and the Foucauldian concept of power/knowledge through a critical feminist lens. A participatory approach was chosen in the hope that transformation of KMC practice would be achieved and embedded within this NICU. In addition, I intended to contribute to the emerging body of evidence calling for the collaboration of all community members toward enhanced quality of KMC. Multiple methods were used to capture data relating to the NICU’s KMC programme through audit, observation and interview of key stakeholders.  Project planning included the conventions of PAR generally applied to research using this methodology. Three iterative cycles of exploration, implementation and evaluation of the KMC programme were envisaged within this setting. Active participation with multiple NICU stakeholders was planned for, forming the basis of action-based change and improvement of KMC. However, the three-cycle process was not achieved within the time limitations of my research, with field work finishing at the conclusion of the first exploratory cycle. This thesis describes the unfolding processes of PAR, as well as the inclusion of a secondary discourse analysis and parental perspectives from local and global literature.  Key findings showed inconsistently documented KMC and the near-absence of KMC practice for a significant group of babies. Whilst the benefit of KMC was embedded in the understanding of participants, this knowledge did not translate to practice. There was an unrealistic optimism about the functioning of KMC by most of the stakeholders. In addition, participants expressed ambiguity about their programme, contributing to and influenced by suboptimal KMC education and training. A pathway to improvement of their KMC programme was lacking, and the lines of responsibility for it were unclear. This factor undoubtedly contributed to the difficulties of implementing a full PAR project. Whilst parental, staff and organisational factors were found to influence KMC implementation, arguably the greatest effect on the intervention were the power relations inherent within the normative technocratic, biomedical paradigm. Power relations constituting what was considered authoritative knowledge, and who was authorised to speak, impacted on the participatory nature of the research itself. This resulted in the research not proceeding past the first PAR exploratory cycle through to rounds of implementation and evaluation.  This thesis describes participatory inquiry into one KMC programme in the high-income NICU setting, through the lenses of multiple participants within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. These were not previously known. It also provides an example of how Foucauldian- and feminist-informed PAR methodology may be used within the NICU setting for inquiry into KMC, an intervention positioned outside of the normative biomedical framework.</p>

scholarly journals Healthy Pacific grandparents: a participatory action research project exploring ageing well among Pacific people in New Zealand

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-148
Author(s):  
El-Shadan Tautolo ◽  
Wendy Wrapson ◽  
Janis Paterson ◽  
Valerie Wright-St Clair ◽  
Stephen Neville ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Pacific People

scholarly journals Guidelines for cross‐cultural Participatory Action Research partnerships: A case study of a customary seabird harvest in New Zealand

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Moller ◽  
Philip O'Blyver ◽  
Corey Bragg ◽  
Jamie Newman ◽  
Rosemary Clucas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Research Partnerships

scholarly journals PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH

Sosio Informa ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mu'man Nuryana
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reflection Theory

Sebuah Kerangka Kerja bagi Action Research dalam Pengembangan Komunitas dan Pendidikan Populer - This paper helps to elaborate about how researchers, teachers and educational advisors balance their different roles in participatory action research teams. Through explaining the Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a way of building bridges and making connections between people, this method of doing research depicted a process that seeks to develop a practical knowledge and understanding of social, political, environmental, or economical conditions. By using PAR on of research and development, we can recognize our social relationships and the value of our real experiences and personal thoughts and feelings. Moreover, PAR seeks to link the research process to the process of social change; it recognizes the change process as a researchable topic; it brings the research process full circle with people's interests in finding practical solutions for common problems and issues of concern by uniting action and reflection, theory and practice; it involves doing research to define a problem as well as applying the information in action towards solutions to identified problems; it is research conducted by, with and for people, rather than research on people; it is participatory in that it is a necessary condition that people play key roles in and have relevant information about the social system, or community, under study, and that they participate in the research design and implementation of action plans based on research outcomes.

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