Maternal and Child Health Professional: 

Just to have someone else to bounce off is, you know, you just couldn’t imagine it any other way. And even the older nurses who have worked by themselves really see the value in having someone else working with them now. Emails have made a huge difference. Now Maternal and Child Health is on the computer and we have emails I feel much more connected to people in that I can email people and say ‘what’s happening, what do you think?’ We try and meet a few girls for lunch from the other centres. So when I was working by myself I made sure I did that because I really needed to just not only get out of the building but just to see some other people and just have some normal chit-chat.

We also have clinical supervision. We have a psychologist from Alfred CAMS and we have that once a month in a group of five. And so we usually present the more difficult clients’ families and discuss them within that group, and so that’s helpful as well for managing some of the difficult ones to get ideas from. I guess in clinical supervision it gives me a chance to talk about the way I manage things and I guess then I can reflect on maybe how I could have done it better or, no, usually it’s quite positive actually. You know at the moment my colleague has a client with cystic fibrosis, I’ve never had anything to do with cystic fibrosis, and another syndrome that I really have nothing to do with, and I think she would be much more au fait than me with managing some of those clients. On the other hand, before I did Maternal Child Health I worked in a sleep settling centre so I guess I feel like I have a bit of that knowledge. I feel quite comfortable and find it quiet easy to talk about that sort of thing so people would say ‘speak to her about that, she’s done that sort of thing before’.

I’m always learning from my clients. They always teach you things and especially the families, well not especially, but families that do have things like cystic fibrosis you’re always learning about how it’s managed from their journey as they report back to you. We are basically a well baby clinic really, we’re only meant to deal with the normal I suppose, even though you get the abnormal coming in, we are dealing with the normal issues. So they’re always teaching and they’re always teaching you about how they’ve managed, about how they’ve coped, about what they’ve done that has worked for them, so you’re always learning. From the enhanced nurse that I’ve had a bit to with she’s given me a book to read about separation so I’ve been reading that and I’ve seen what this woman’s talking about in my clients and that’s been a real help. And so recently I feel like I’ve really learnt a lot about that and talking to my clients about that. I think you’re always learning, and if you’re not learning you’re in trouble really.