Nurses on Nevis enhance their teaching skills

Education and Prevention Officer at the Nevis Island Administration’s Health Promotion Unit Nurse Eldina Farrell

NIA Charlestown Nevis September 5th, 2013 — Nurses in Nevis were recently given the opportunity to enhance their teaching skills in preparation to become potential trainers of nurse educators at a workshop sponsored and facilitated by the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART).

Education and Prevention Officer at the Nevis Island Administration’s (NIA) Health Promotion Unit Nurse Eldina Farrell, Nurse Managers at the Community Health level Deslyn Whyte and Ermine Jeffers and Assistant Nurse Manager Bernadette Jeffers attended the August 26 to 29, 2013 Nursing Faculty Development Workshop in St. Lucia.

The four-day training exercise exposed the participants to the “Teach back” methodology, an integrated approach which incorporates adult learning principles, the learning of training methods and the teaching of HIV and AIDS course content to fellow training participants.

The aim of the Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop was to provide an opportunity to bolster relevant teaching skills of potential trainers who would facilitate the 2014 Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Nursing Faculty Development Workshop on Teaching Strategies in HIV; to provide current HIV/AIDS information for potential trainers who are currently working in the area of HIV and AIDS and; to improve the capacity of OECS countries to effectively lead and sustain the delivery of quality HIV-related pre-service and professional development trainings.

According to the Education and Prevention Officer, 19 participants from five OECS countries should now be equipped with the requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes which are necessary to train nurse educators in the delivery of quality services.

“The workshop was designed for participants to get involved in training tutors in the various colleges throughout the OECS, nursing educators and other persons involved in pre-service (nursing students) in the area of HIV and anybody who is tutoring persons in nursing schools and colleges. The workshop is aimed at the trainers relaying the information to them in a programme or course coming up next year,” she said.

Nurse Farrell added that every country had the opportunity to decide when they would stage their training sessions and St. Jitts and Nevis had been eying June-July 2014 but was mindful that all stakeholders would have to be consulted in the making of a final decision.

The workshop was funded by Bill Clinton’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the International Training & Education Center for Health (I-TECH).