Professor Annie Chevrier and her colleague Dr. Laurie Gottlieb, Principal Investigator of the SBNH Partnership Grant, have been active in establishing a community of practice between the Haute École de Santé Vaud (HESAV), of Lausanne, Switzerland, and McGill’s Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN). In 2018 Dr. Gottlieb, who developed the Strengths-Based Nursing and Healthcare (SBNH) philosophy and approach that underpins the ISoN undergraduate curriculum, traveled to Lausanne to present a series of workshops introducing SBNH and how it can be implemented to improve the day-to-day practice of health care professionals, professors, and researchers. Based on the enthusiastic response to Dr. Gottlieb’s presentations, the faculty and leadership of the HESAV moved to adopt SBNH as the philosophical underpinning of their undergraduate curriculum. Prof. Chevrier was invited from March 11-13 2020, as a scholar in residence by the faculty of Nursing of the HESAV to provide consultation and to advise them in this process of implementation of SBNH as they embark on revising their undergraduate nursing program. She offered coaching based on ISoN’s experience of launching their revised undergraduate curriculum and guided them in an exploration of what the SBNH approach means in practice.
There is great congruency between the values and philosophy of ISoN and the HESAV. Many of the same values represented in SBNH already informed the existing curriculum of the HESAV, but the approach offers a lexicon and repository of ideas, along with ways to make them concrete and practicable. Prof. Chevrier presented examples of how SBNH supports the design of study programs for the development of the whole spectrum of the nursing profession; informing professional identity, clinical practice, leadership, and quality of care. Through presentations, workshops, and plenary discussion, she explained the pillars and core values of SBNH as well as tangible strategies and best practices for curriculum design, evaluation, and implementation.
The workshops took place against the backdrop of much of Europe shutting down as measures were enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19. Despite this context, the presentations yielded engaging and meaningful conversations.
The building collaboration between the two schools extends beyond this mentorship, as HESAV Professor Valérie Renoud-Grenier joined Dr. Gottlieb and other presenters from Canada, Europe, and Australia to present a symposium on SBNH at the Commonwealth Nurses and Midwives Conference in London, UK in early March 2020.
We look forward to a rich continuation of this relationship, bringing clinicians and scholars together in meaningful exchange about how the philosophy of SBNH can shape and inform nursing education, as we build upon this existing community of practice.
