Browsing by Author "Symonds-Brown, Holly"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Breaking from tradition: transforming leadership education in nursing
    (2015) Symonds-Brown, Holly; Milner, Margaret
    Leadership development is critical for nurses to be engaged in health system reform and transformation. Trends in nursing practice led to the development of an innovative senior consolidation course in our four year undergraduate nursing program. We hypothesized that providing opportunities for application of theoretical knowledge related to complex adaptive systems and leadership would enhance professional identity formation. We describe our experiences implementing a clinical course wherein nursing students are provided opportunities to explore and develop their leadership acumen within an undergraduate curriculum. We discuss how breaking from curricular tradition involved intentional use of pedagogy (transformational learning theory), innovative instructional design, and the formation of collaborative partnerships to provide a space for students to practice the cognitive, relational, and meaning making skills required for leadership development. We highlight the impact of this journey on students, faculty, and community partners as we forge ahead in planning next steps to determine the level of engagement of our graduates in health system design, advocacy, and stewardship.
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    Re-thinking the nature of day programs for people with dementia: implications for research
    (2019) Symonds-Brown, Holly; Ceci, Christine; Duggleby, Wendy; Purkis, Mary Ellen
    Day programs are commonly identified in dementia strategies as a solution for keeping people with dementia home for as long as possible. Limited research evidence is available to support these policy approaches, and much of what exists demonstrates equivocal results. While key day program researchers have called for improvements in methodological and theoretical efforts, we argue that basic assumptions concerning what a day program is, and how the effects of day programs should be studied, also require reconsideration. Problematization is a systematic review strategy used to identify and critique assumptions guiding research practices and knowledge development in a field of study. The approach entails a broad overview of a field of research alongside a close reading of key texts to identify prevailing assumptions about the object of study and how it can be known. The intent is to discern how these assumptions are influencing research practices and thus knowledge development. A review of historical texts and research literature reviews was used (1) to identify trends in day program research between 1990 and 2018 and (2) to support identification of influential and typical studies for closer analysis (n = 36). The outcome of our analysis of the research literature suggests three sets of assumptions that guide much of the day program research literature: dementia is mainly treated as a problem of the individual; day programs are treated as stand-alone units of substitute care; and the space of day programs is seen as a simple background to care. We argue that the assumptions regarding care and space have narrowed the field of research and contributed to the production of equivocal findings. We suggest alternative framings of notions of care and space, informed by a Science and Technology Studies’ approach to care practices, to generate knowledge about day programs that can usefully inform policy and practice.
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    Rethinking the assumptions of intervention research concerned with care at home for people with dementia
    (2018) Symonds-Brown, Holly; Ceci, Christine; Judge, Harkeert
    Aging populations have been positioned as a challenge to health and social service planning around the world, a situation even more pronounced in the case of persons with a diagnosis of dementia. While policy responses emphasize that care be provided for persons with dementia in home settings for as long as possible and that family carers be supported in the provision of this care, finding good ways to support families as they do the work of ‘delaying institutionalization’ has been challenging despite decades of intervention research intended to develop and evaluate interventions to support families. In this context of limited effectiveness it is useful to examine the assumptions informing research practices. Problematization is a method of literature analysis useful for clarifying and challenging assumptions informing a field of research in order to generate new approaches to research or new research questions. Our analysis suggests that although community-based intervention research has contributed significant knowledge about the kinds of things that might help families, there are limitations related to the dominant assumptions underlying the field. We highlight three areas for re-consideration: the overriding focus on caregiver–care recipient dyads, the under-determination of the object(s) of inquiry and the algorithmic nature of interventions themselves. Issues in these areas, we argue, arise from a commitment to homogeneity characteristic of biomedical models of disease that may need to be rethought in the face of consequential heterogeneity among research populations. That is, there is a mismatch between ‘dementia’ in the intervention research literature and ‘dementia’ in the life that is consequential for families living with these concerns.
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    Seeing the collective: family arrangements for care at home for older people with dementia
    (2018) Ceci, Christine; Symonds-Brown, Holly; Purkis, Mary Ellen
    With the predicted growth in the number of people with dementia living at home across the globe, the need for home-based care is expected to increase. As such, it will be primarily family carers who will provide this crucial support to family members. Designing appropriate support for family carers is thus essential to minimise risks to their health, to prevent premature institutionalisation or poor care for persons with dementia, as well as to sustain the effective functioning of health and social care systems. To date, the high volume of research related to care at home and acknowledged low impact of interventions suggests that a re-examination of the nature of care at home, and how we come to know about it, is necessary if we are to advance strategies that will contribute to better outcomes for families. This paper describes findings from an ethnographic study that was designed to support an analysis of the complexity and materiality of family care arrangements – that is, the significance of the actual physical, technological and institutional elements shaping care-giving situations. In this paper, we describe the arrangements made by one family to show the necessary collectivity of these arrangements, and the consequences of the formal care system's failure to respond to these.
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    Sharing stories of mothering, academia and the COVID 19 pandemic: multiple roles, messiness and family wellbeing
    (2022) Croxen, Hanneke; Jackson, Margot; Asirifi, Mary; Symonds-Brown, Holly
    The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruption. Responsibilities increased especially for people who identify as mothers needing to balance work and caring for their child(ren). Through the use of personal narratives, we explored our experiences as mothers who work in academia. The purpose of this commentary is to explore the commonalities of our experiences of trying to maintain the multiple roles and responsibilities demanded from us as mothers and academics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two themes emerged: multiple roles and responsibilities and embracing the ‘messiness’. The need to take on multiple roles simultaneously such as working from home and parenting was challenging. Embracing the ‘messiness’ demonstrated that caring for our children while working from home caused their needs and our time to focus on them to be compromised. Our work and productivity were impacted with minimal available support but this was not acknowledged within the business as usual practices of the university. The conditions that negatively impact us, also negatively impact our children. Children have needed to adjust to pandemic conditions and their support has been compromised due to the other competing demands mothers face. As academics, our future work will be informed and shaped from this experience, and so too will the growth and development of our children. Our experiences from this pandemic highlight the gendered inequities present within academia and the potential negative effects on child well-being. We call attention to this issue to help promote change and advocate for mothers working in academia and elsewhere.
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    The role of the forensic nurse in the assessment of abuse among female suicide survivors
    (2002) Symonds-Brown, Holly; Constantino, R. E.; Crane, P.; Sutton, L.
    Examined experiences of abuse in 49 female suicide survivors (aged 24-59 yrs). The Ss completed a socio-demographic questionnaire and the Victim Rejection Scale. The results showed that 65.3% of the survivors of suicide had experienced some form of abuse, the most frequent being verbal abuse. It is concluded that experiences of abuse may effect the bereavement process and coping strategies in surviving the suicide of a spouse. Implications for forensic nursing are discussed.