It was the begin­ning of COVID-19 when Leanne Lau­rie joined the Edu­ca­tion Team as a Facil­i­ta­tor, a time when bor­ders were clos­ing and a new régime of online and hybrid edu­ca­tion was being rolled out to adapt to pan­dem­ic restrictions. 

Now deep into 2022, the Edu­ca­tion Team is back on the road and Leanne, moved into the posi­tion of Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er, is hap­py to see par­tic­i­pants again enjoy­ing face-to-face learn­ing and ben­e­fit­ing from revamped edu­ca­tion materials.

COVID-19 impact­ed the deliv­ery of edu­ca­tion cours­es, says Leanne, and the organ­i­sa­tion met the chal­lenge head-on.

One of CRANAplus’ main points of dif­fer­ence is reach­ing remote nurs­es in out-of-the-way loca­tions all over the coun­try, so all stops were pulled out to deal with the logis­tics and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of such a dif­fi­cult situation.

“A lot of work has been done behind the scenes,” says Leanne. ​“We have lis­tened to stake­hold­er feed­back, includ­ing par­tic­i­pant and indus­try sec­tor require­ments. We recog­nise the need to con­tin­u­al­ly revise the con­tent of the cours­es, imple­ment these changes and deliv­er best prac­tice through­out our course con­tent. The par­tic­i­pants, after all, go back to their posts and often have to imme­di­ate­ly put into action the skills they have just learned.”

Face-to-face cours­es are high­ly val­ued by par­tic­i­pants, says Leanne, because they pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work with oth­er rur­al and remote health pro­fes­sion­als, time to debrief, to share lived expe­ri­ences and to make new friends and con­tacts with oth­er peo­ple in sim­i­lar work posi­tions. For many, it’s also time out of com­mu­ni­ties to learn and to relax.

“We have a raft of revamped face-to-face train­ing cours­es and more changes are on the way,” Leanne says, refer­ring in part to the recent­ly updat­ed PEC + PALS Course which Kylie Fis­ch­er dis­cuss­es here.

“I am very excit­ed about the edu­ca­tion course we are devel­op­ing for Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers and Prac­ti­tion­ers, work­ing close­ly with Abo­rig­i­nal Health Organ­i­sa­tions,” Leanne says.

“The course will present par­tic­i­pants with a menu focus­ing on local require­ments, pro­vid­ing var­i­ous clin­i­cal sce­nar­ios, and they will be able to choose what is actu­al­ly required for the role.”

The Mid­wifery Emer­gency Course (MEC) is being rewrit­ten in part­ner­ship with stake­hold­ers with ref­er­ence to feed­back from for­mer par­tic­i­pants. The new course will see more skills-ori­ent­ed course con­tent, giv­ing par­tic­i­pants greater oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise emer­gency mid­wifery skills.

“The new Triage Emer­gency Care (TEC) online course is now into the sec­ond course deliv­ery with fab­u­lous reviews and feed­back. All our cours­es are being reviewed with a focus on pro­vid­ing con­tem­po­rary evi­dence-based con­tent, con­tex­tu­alised to the remote and iso­lat­ed regions,” Leanne says. 

This includes the Remote Emer­gency Course (REC), revamped to increase the focus on skill sta­tions and real­is­tic sce­nar­ios for the rur­al and remote practitioner.

While all that is hap­pen­ing, the Edu­ca­tion Team of Facil­i­ta­tors and Remote Edu­ca­tors are play­ing catch-up on all cours­es that had to be rescheduled.

While face-to-face cours­es are becom­ing eas­i­er to deliv­er again, Leanne says CRANAplus will con­tin­ue to offer the hybrid and online deliv­ery options that the organ­i­sa­tion refined dur­ing COVID-19, because there will always be a need to serve par­tic­i­pants with lim­it­ed trav­el options and time away from communities.

Learn­ing and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion for oth­ers is what moti­vates Leanne, who has always worked rur­al and remote since com­plet­ing her train­ing, going to the fur­ther­most point of WA, Wyn­d­ham, for her first post as an Enrolled Nurse. 

Leanne has since com­plet­ed her RN train­ing, then post­grad stud­ies includ­ing Child Health, Mid­wifery, Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er and most recent­ly Lead­er­ship and Man­age­ment qual­i­fi­ca­tions in Health Care. 

“I believe in life­long learn­ing and am pas­sion­ate in ensur­ing high-qual­i­ty health and edu­ca­tion is avail­able to all.”

“I love being part of the CRANAplus Edu­ca­tion Team. Every­one is so pas­sion­ate about pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion to the remote and iso­lat­ed work­force and this is so reward­ing with the amaz­ing feed­back we receive on every sin­gle CRANAplus course that is delivered. 

“It is always hum­bling when we hear from par­tic­i­pants how much val­ue they receive from the course con­tent, the increase in con­fi­dence they come away with and often the sto­ries they share of skills learned and put into practice. 

“What sets CRANAplus apart from oth­er ser­vice providers, apart from its rur­al and remote focus, is that the cours­es are deliv­ered by peo­ple who under­stand the chal­lenges faced.

“I start­ed as a facil­i­ta­tor about two years ago… I think, like most facil­i­ta­tors, you get to the point of ask­ing, ​‘how can I give back to the nurs­ing pro­fes­sion?’ That’s how most peo­ple come into the role.

“I moved into the role of a Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tor (RCE) last Sep­tem­ber and then this year moved into the Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er (CEM) role, pro­vid­ing sup­port and assis­tance to the RCEs who deliv­er all our cours­es with our vol­un­teer facilitators.

“The CRANAplus team as a whole and espe­cial­ly the Direc­tor of Edu­ca­tion has been so sup­port­ive and the team of Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tors are amaz­ing, along with all our fab­u­lous Facil­i­ta­tors. I feel very sup­port­ed by those around me.

“While I am in the man­ag­ing role, I still want to keep doing the cours­es. The beau­ty of work­ing with CRANAplus is the flexibility.

“Our Edu­ca­tion Team is also look­ing at our pres­ence at the CRANAplus Con­fer­ence in Octo­ber,” Leanne says in conclusion. 

“We hope to show­case our new equip­ment and resources and pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for con­fer­ence atten­dees to par­tic­i­pate in some sce­nario ses­sions with a few prizes up for grabs. We will have dis­plays and infor­ma­tion from all our cur­rent cours­es and our Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tors will be avail­able through­out the conference.”