Would you like to organise a Positive Touch course at your Hospital?

Cherry Bond can run workshops on ‘Positive Touch in the Neonatal Unit’     The benefits of getting her to come to you are:     you can train many more staff it will be cost effective the training can be adapted to specific hospital's needs you can book Cherry Bond for an extra day or two, for bedside training with small groups

Courses can be arranged for international centres; courses and workshops conducted in USA, Canada and Portugal and Australia

For information on dates and costs please email Cherry Bond

Evaluation of the Positive Touch Course RNSH: Oct 19th-21st, 2011

A “Positive Touch in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit” Course was run at Royal North Shore Hospital in October 2011. This course was led by Cherry Bond, a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse at the Winnicott Baby Unit at St Mary’s Hospital in London and an internationally recognised speaker on this topic. The course was generously funded by the Flower and Gift Shop, so could be offered to RNSH Neonatal staff without charge. This course was coordinated by the Paediatric Physiotherapy Department in collaboration with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

All RNSH neonatal staff were given the opportunity to apply to attend this course. Twenty-four staff members attended the three-day course, including Nursing Staff, Medical Staff and Allied Health Staff.

The Aims of the course were to:

• Consider and explore the social and emotional needs of infants and families in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), outside of a purely medical model of care.
• Promote the implementation of a programme that encapsulates emotional, social, and physical aspects of caring for parents and infants in the NICU, at a critical time of stress and separation.
• Promote infant stability offering positive, developmentally appropriate, sensory experiences.
• Learn and practice techniques to support infants in the NICU environment, especially in times of stress; providing non-pharmacological alternatives for dealing with pain and distress.
• Highly value, and empower parents, by offering an approach that helps them to connect and communicate with their infant.
• Promote early positive parenting skills by facilitating parental recognition and response to infant behaviour, from admission to discharge.
• Enhance the neonatal staff role in offering holistic care for their families, giving them an opportunity to show their acceptance of the parents’ contribution as an essential part of the infant’s long term development.

Of the 24 participants, 21 returned their evaluation form at the end of the course.
100% of respondents strongly agreed that this course was interesting and relevant to their needs as a health professional
100% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the course was well structured and delivered.
100% of respondents strongly agreed that the course tutor had a good rapport with delegates, responded to questions appropriately and presented to a high standard.
95% of participants agreed that the venue was comfortable and appropriate for the course. One participant did not feel the venue was comfortable due to a difficulty hearing towards the back of the room.
Some of the best aspects of the course as rated by the participants included:

• Practical information on baby cues and pacing
• Having the opportunity to observe babies and practically apply the theory learned
• Constructive ideas given for optimally positioning babies
• The emphasis on the parents being involved from day one
• The relaxed, paced style of presentation
• The emphasis on empowering staff and recognising individual strengths within the team
• The focus on improving long term outcomes for NICU graduates
• The opportunity to discuss care with staff from a variety of areas and disciplines
• The individualised aspects of care
• The fantastic, inspirational presenter

Some of the comments provided on the Evaluation Forms included:
“Fantastic speaker – Thank you, you have opened my eyes”
“Loved the course. Thanks so much”
“Thank you Cherry for all your fantastic information. You are a credit to the profession. We need more passionate people like you in this world. We would have lots more happy little souls in our world. “
“Such an insightful curse that can improve babies outcomes - and through the practical day was able to realise how important the parents can feel using ideas of Positive Touch.”
‘It has been a very interesting and informative course. I will go back to work on the unit, looking and caring for babies in a very different, but good way. Cherry’s enthusiasm about caring for babies is very catching!”
“This is a fantastic course - I enjoyed every session. There are more applicants who would have liked to attend. The same course should be run so as to afford the same opportunity to those that missed out.”

Future Directions:

• This course served to bring a number of staff members in the Newborn Care Centre up to date with current trends in Developmentally Supportive Care for preterm infants.
• Each participant received a manual. An additional course manual, a selection of course handouts and a ‘Guide to Infant Development in the Newborn Nursery’ Handbook was provided for the nursery following the course.
• Ongoing challenges exist in finding the best way to utilise these theories in policies and practice within the nursery, and disseminate information to staff members who were not able to attend the course.
• Opportunities to repeat this course for staff members in 2012 or 2013 could be explored.
• A project to utilise the ‘Essentials of Care’ framework to assist in implementing change and embedding some of the course theories into practice is planned for 2012. This is likely to yield a variety of strategies and projects, and importantly is led by feedback and input from all the staff in the nursery. Ongoing evaluation of this process will be vital.