Nursing and culture change leaders at PHI training
National leaders in gerontological nursing education and culture change participated in a two-day PHI Coaching SupervisionSM seminar in New York City in early June.
The long-term care nurse leaders convened to experience the PHI Coaching ApproachSM to Supervision firsthand and discuss its implications for successfully fulfilling the nurse’s role.
PHI has been documenting and field-testing its Coaching Approach to Supervision with long-term care providers for the past four years, with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies.
“It is a tribute to PHI and the work you have done that you were able to bring together such a distinguished group,” said Amy Berman, a program officer at The John A. Hartford Foundation who attended the program.
Spreading the PHI Supervision Approach
Sara Joffe, PHI organizational and executive coach and director of the Center for Coaching Supervision and Leadership, and Susan Misiorski, national director of PHI Training & Organizational Development Services, taught the seminar with PHI Certified Coaching Trainers Anna Ortigara of the Green House Project and the Pioneer Network and Joanne Rader of Rader Consulting and the Pioneer Network.
Rader has supported PHI by bringing the PHI Coaching Approach to Supervision (pdf) to colleges of nursing. Ortigara has partnered with PHI to bring the PHI Coaching Approach as applied to three key areas — supervision, leadership, and clinical partnership — to the Green House Project.
Every Organizational Level Would Benefit
“This coaching supervision class was remarkable,” Ortigara said. “These are the leaders who can bring coaching skills to undergraduate nursing students as well as long-term care provider sites. It can change the way nurses are engaged in empowering relationships with care teams.”
The seminar participants’ primary interest was in the application of coaching skills for nurses in the field.
The nurse’s role as supervisor of nursing assistants is critical to the delivery of high quality care, yet nurses receive little formal training in this non-clinical aspect of their role,” said Assistant Professor Elena Siegel of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. “It’s wonderful to see how PHI’s Coaching Supervision program is supporting nurses’ development in this area.”
There was also a high level of interest and excitement in the relevance of this approach for culture change efforts in nursing homes.
“PHI has an exceptional approach to helping organizations on their culture change journey,” said Pioneer Network Executive Director Bonnie Kantor. She continued:
One of the core values of culture change is that “relationship” is the fundamental building block of a transformed culture. I think that the skills, attitude, and knowledge gained through the training could assist care providers at all levels of the organizations in creating the kind of caring, effective, and efficient culture that we all desire.
The group of seasoned professionals also found the discussions, small group exercises, and skill practice sessions to be highly relevant to their own personal and professional lives.
The PHI Coaching Approach draws upon the skills of active listening, self-awareness, self- management, and clear communication without blame and judgment. When practicing these skills in the classroom setting and back on the job, participants learn a dramatically different way to support individuals and teams than that offered by traditional supervisory approaches.
– by Susan Misiorski, National Director of PHI Training & Organizational Development Services
