• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Queen's Nursing Institute Scotland

Promoting excellence in community nursing across Scotland

  • About QNIS
  • Contact
  • E-mail
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • What we do
    • Awards
      • Long Service Awards
      • Academic Prizes
    • Annual Reviews
    • External Funding: Hardship, Education Grants and Scholarships
    • Resource Hub
    • Policy
      • QNIS Policy
    • Safeguarding those at risk of financial abuse and scamming
    • Voluntary Standards
      • Community Children’s Nursing Standards
        • Community Children’s Nursing Pack from NHS Grampian
        • Interviews with Community Children’s Nurses
        • Video Interview – Community Children’s Nurse
        • Stories from Community Children’s Nurses
  • What is Community Nursing?
  • Queen’s Nurses
    • Meet the Queen’s Nurses
    • Contemporary Queen’s Nurses
    • Queen’s Nurse map
    • Learning Disability Queen’s Nurse Programme 2020
    • Animation
    • Retired Queen’s Nurses
    • Voices of Experience
  • News
    • QNIS Blogs
  • Events
    • Conference
      • Conference 2019
      • Conference 2018
      • Conference 2017
      • Health Visitor Conference 2017
    • Poetry in a time of pandemic
    • Winter Wellbeing Evenings
  • History
  • Catalysts for Change
loading...

Being a Catalyst for Change

19th July 2019

Elizabeth Smith is Breastfeeding Advocacy Lead for Scotland within the Scottish Government, she is also a Queen’s Nurse. In 2017 she was Community Infant Feeding Nurse at NHS Ayrshire and Arran and received QNIS funding through Catalysts for Change. Here, she tells us about her journey through Catalysts. Read more about her project, here.

My role covered a lot of different areas – staff training, policy and guideline development, and the provision of specialist support for the Health Visitor Team for any infant feeding issues. Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding was also a part of my job. 

I’d known for a while that I wanted to do some work around spreading awareness of breastfeeding.  North Ayrshire had a really low rate of mums breastfeeding – only 17% of mums breastfed at weeks 6-8, compared to the Scottish average of 26%; there was an embedded culture towards formula feeding, and I wanted to show them that there was another way to feed your baby.  I’d looked around for funding, but awareness-raising of breastfeeding never met the criteria, and then I saw Catalysts for Change, and the project did fit, so we were off the ground. 

I wanted to start as early as possible, why wait until people are pregnant and expect the midwife to change attitudes; so we talked to young people, in schools. Interactive session with all age groups led to a relaxed atmosphere for open and honest conversations. We did a whole school approach, speaking to every year group, along with their teachers. We’d told the teachers that they were welcome to leave us to it, but they all stayed. Many later said that they had learned enough that they could be involved in helping to deliver future sessions.   

The project allowed us to test and develop sessions for nursery, primary and secondary schools. And the work is now being taken forward as part of a national programme to introduce children and young people to breastfeeding and discuss early nutrition.  

Catalysts for Change is a partnership programme, and this truly was a partnership: not just teachers and schools, but, parents, young people, Breastfeeding Network colleagues, we all worked collaboratively, and the project goes on to this day. 

The Catalysts for Change Programme provided us with a lot of support throughout, it isn’t just the funding. Meeting up with the other projects, all starting off at the same time was really interesting, to get different ideas, perspectives and feedback on the project. That gives you a boost, reminds you what you are doing, and helps refine the final product. 

The funding itself may not be a lot, but a small amount of funding can make a big difference. 

We spoke to over 1,000 kids about breastfeeding.  We could not have done that without the funding.  In turn, this has snowballed out into the community.  It started off as a small project, but it has had a big impact. 

You can learn more about the Catalyst for Change Programme here.

 

Primary Sidebar

Meet the Queen’s Nurses

The Queen's Nurse candidates

About QNIS

  • QNIS Council
  • QNIS Council Decisions
  • QNIS Fellows
  • Staff
  • Supporters
  • Annual Reports

Queen’s Nurses

  • History of Queen’s Nursing
  • Contemporary Queen’s Nurses
  • Retired Queen’s Nurses
  • Voices of Experience

Awards

  • Scotland’s Queen’s Nurses
  • Long Service Awards
  • Academic Prizes

Further information

 

FAQs

Why come to conference?

Opportunity to develop your skills, understanding and networks within community nursing.

Past news

More news

Queen’s Nurse on BBC Radio Scotland

Building a fairer, healthier world

Helping Nurses Cope with Psychological Trauma in the Workplace

Be inspired…

Find resources

Resource Type:
Community Nursing Speciality:
Search by keyword:
Searching…

Footer Widget Header

Footer

Contact

31 Castle Terrace
Edinburgh EH1 2EL

Email: office@qnis.org.uk
Telephone: 0131 229 2333

Sign up for our newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Tweets by QNI_Scotland
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Accessibility

Copyright © 2021 The Queen's Nursing Institute Scotland
Registered Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation SC005751
Website built by graphics.coop · Powered by WordPress