Christina is the project site lead for the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l'脦le-de-Montr茅al. She has been an active member on various committees for the grant including the Training Committee, the Evaluation Committee, and the Ethics Committee. Our Project Administrator Anna Adjemian spoke with her about her commitment to the SBNH values as the foundation of professional practice, and the power of common language to create and strengthen professional identity and values-based practice.
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Anna Adjemian: Please give us a short background/summary of who you are and what you do professionally.
Christina Clausen:听Currently, I am the Coordinator and Site Lead of the 捆绑SM社区 Nursing Collaborative at the CIUSSS Centre-Ouest. The Collaborative is a partnership amongst 3 institutions: the CIUSSS Centre-Ouest, the 捆绑SM社区 Health Center, and the Ingram School of Nursing. Monies have been donated by the Newton Foundation and matched by our respective individual hospital Foundations at each site. The objective of the funds is to advance nursing education, research and practice, and to build a network of nursing scholarship in Montreal. One of our strategic orientations within the Collaborative has been Strengths-Based Nursing and Healthcare.
I graduated from 捆绑SM社区 as a Direct Entry nursing graduate in 2002 and worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Maternal Child Health. I鈥檝e done international work in Mexico and in Africa. I completed my PhD looking at how nurse and physician leaders develop effective interprofessional partnerships at the management level. I finished my PhD in 2015 and completed a postdoctorate at l鈥橴niversit茅 de Montr茅al looking at educational perspectives around developing competencies in interprofessional collaboration. I am also one of the Course Directors for the Office of Interprofessional Education, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at 捆绑SM社区.
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Why did you get involved with this project?
I have had a long history with Strengths-Based Nursing and Healthcare. I was a clinical nurse specialist when Laurie was developing and exploring these concepts and ideas. I was interviewed for the book [Strengths-Based Nursing Care: Health and Healing for Person and Family, Gottlieb, 2013]. Since this experience, I鈥檝e always felt that an SBNH lens has been an important part of my practice whether as a clinician, an educator, or as a researcher. This project in particular focuses on facilitating those involved to identify, articulate, and label the core values set out in the SBNH approach that guide our nursing practice. Looking through an SBNH lens, it not only reminds us, but also asks us, what our core values are and to what extent are we living those core values in the way we work with others, the way we care for patients. I feel it provides a common language and understanding for the nursing profession. It鈥檚 only through the process of reflecting, labeling, and linking that we start to put language to what we do, and this makes the essence of nursing visible.
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What does SBNH mean to you?
SBNH is a value driven approach to care. This is tremendously important I think, particularly as I look at the challenges that nursing as a profession is confronted with along with the tenuous health challenges of our context. Nursing has such a powerful role to play in shaping and safeguarding what works well in our healthcare system. I think knowing our core values for care, being able to articulate them, label and link them to our practice creates not only a language but also an identity for the profession. It is what we can rely on to get us through some of the most difficult situations we鈥檒l confront in our work, as professionals and as individuals. SBNH identifies qualities and capabilities that we already have within ourselves. It鈥檚 always asking and helping us to identify other capabilities that we may not have seen in ourselves. We also see that we鈥檙e not perfect. We can fall short at times, but there鈥檚 always opportunity to recognize, reflect and learn from this. I think that鈥檚 tremendously important as the next generation of nursing continues to grow. The SBNH values anchor us to our practice and keep us connected to why we went into the profession in the first place.
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What does this project mean to you/what do you hope to see come out of your work on this project?
SBNH is something that starts from within. It starts from where we鈥檙e at in our nursing practice, when we work with others in our clinical units, in our organizations; and there鈥檚 a vision here that has to be adopted at the highest organizational level. If our organizational visions are guided and articulated by these values, it gives us courage to stand by them and the perseverance to reach those ideals. This has to be embodied, and it鈥檚 a personal journey. But having a higher organizational adoption of these values and principles will lend itself to a whole cultural shift and transformation for nursing. It鈥檚 about developing ourselves and developing others. People will discover strengths in themselves and in their teams. This growth mindset is what鈥檚 going to be required as we move through some of the most difficult and challenging times we鈥檝e ever seen in nursing 鈥� given the pandemic.
I鈥檓 hoping that with the concrete things we learn from the SBNH Leadership Program, with the mentorship and the story-telling component, we can build champions and mentors within our organizations. We can be strategic and thoughtful about how we can scale it up and how we can continue to take this work and share it with others so that it becomes part of the language, part of the way we act 鈥� as co-investigator Pam Hubley states, 鈥渉ow we show up鈥� in our work every day. I think there鈥檚 a lot of work ahead to make this tangible and understandable in a way that will help nurses enter the journey and reflect on the values that guide their practice. I鈥檓 delighted to have such a strong team of individuals working on this across two provinces. I can feel even within our partnership grant team how much the SBNH values are taking hold and anchoring us through the whole development, implementation, and evaluation of the project.