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CRANAplus facilitator spotlight: On home soil

14 Aug 2023

CRANAplus course facilitator Jackie Hanniver reflects on the magnetic pull of country Australia, and the less obvious benefits of delivering training where remote health staff work and live.

CRANAplus offers excel­lent cours­es and the fact that they are pro­vid­ed in envi­ron­ments close to where the par­tic­i­pants work is a real plus,” says Jack­ie, Region­al Ser­vices Man­ag­er with the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice (RFDS) in Bro­ken Hill. 

From Bro­ken Hill, it’s a five-hour dri­ve to a major cen­tre, adding a day on either side of the course. To have cours­es held close by and acces­si­ble is an extra bonus.

Tele­health and online cours­es work well, [but] there’s noth­ing quite like hands-on.”

When cours­es are avail­able where remote health pro­fes­sion­als live and work, par­tic­i­pants are more like­ly to feel com­fort­able and active­ly par­tic­i­pate and engage, Jack­ie adds.

[Par­tic­i­pants] are hap­py to share infor­ma­tion about what works and doesn’t work in the con­text of their own envi­ron­ment, bring­ing it back to their world,” she says. This is so use­ful for everyone. 

As facil­i­ta­tors, we don’t walk in there think­ing we know it all. We are always learn­ing our­selves, learn­ing from each oth­er. And from the participants.”

These cours­es also show you that you are not alone. What­ev­er your con­cern, it’s nice to bring you back to this fact. It’s good for your men­tal health. There will always be oth­ers in the room who have been there, and who can advise you.”

Cam­ron — stock​.adobe​.com.

Although she is orig­i­nal­ly from Mel­bourne, Jack­ie has always had a fas­ci­na­tion for small communities. 

For my nurs­ing train­ing, it was no sur­prise to any­one when I took a job work­ing in War­rnam­bool in coun­try Vic­to­ria,” she says. 

I also knew that I’d get a well-round­ed expe­ri­ence rather than doing the same thing every day.”

Just before she head­ed off for a nurs­ing stint in Abu Dhabi, an advert for a flight nurse with the RFDS caught Jackie’s eye. 

I realised that would chal­lenge me and expand my skills,” she says. 

You need to be at the top of your game to do that job.

My time over­seas was a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence, with expo­sure to peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, and when I returned to Aus­tralia I stud­ied mid­wifery, and worked in emer­gency and crit­i­cal care. Always with that advert in mind.”

Since Jack­ie joined the flight nurs­ing team in Bro­ken Hill 12 years ago, she has seen the pri­ma­ry health and men­tal health teams expand, reflect­ing the industry’s grow­ing focus on prevention. 

After her son was born, Jack­ie moved into an edu­ca­tion role and when she took on her cur­rent man­age­r­i­al role last year, she saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to vol­un­teer as a facil­i­ta­tor with CRANAplus. She hopes to be able to facil­i­tate two cours­es a year.

I had [par­tic­i­pat­ed in] CRANAplus cours­es myself, and the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice uses the CRANAplus cours­es for its train­ing,” she says. 

So I know how valu­able they are. And I urge any­one who gets the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend one to take it.”

Keen to enhance your skills? Browse our Face-to-face Cours­es or Online Cours­es.