Blogs from the FNP Community

In July, we welcomed 47 new recruits to the 10th wave of FNP Foundations training – marking nearly a decade of FNP learning since the programme was introduced in England in 2007.

For these 42 family nurses and 5 supervisors, this is just the beginning of a year-long learning programme provided by the FNP National Unit which will continue for as long as they are delivering the FNP programme. As we welcome them on their FNP journey, we asked them to share their reflections about their very first FNP training session.

In the third in our blog series about FNP Foundations training, Lorette Runacres talks about how comprehensive FNP training is and how she is looking forward to trying to challenge her ‘righting reflex’.

Lorette will join the Bexley and Bromley FNP team as a supervisor in September.

“I’m completely changing my job role from a contraception and sexual health matron to join FNP as a supervisor. The Foundations training was a great opportunity to meet other supervisors and family nurses from around the country before I join my team September.

“It’s clear that everyone brings skills and knowledge from their different professional backgrounds from across nursing and health visiting. But the emphasis on support and training in FNP is incredible. I’ve never felt so invested in. Five days of initial training, with online learning modules beforehand and afterwards – and this is just the start!

“The Foundations training sessions provided a great opportunity to practise in a way that really helped to embed the theories within FNP. I enjoyed familiarising myself with the materials too.

“It’s very different to nursing training and previous client work I’ve done and that was unexpected. I’m more used to giving advice in sexual health at the moment. We’re trained as nurses to fix stuff. You have to retrain yourself. There’s more guiding of clients and useful ways to elicit information, and it’s good to know we’ll have more time during work with clients to do this. I need to challenge myself to not revert to the ‘righting reflex’.

“It’s not a good time for public health commissioning. There are difficulties everywhere and many areas are cutting services and reducing health visitor numbers for example. Those realistic challenges of what we will face out there did come up and were addressed at the training session.

“FNP programme is very committed to regular supervision and this will be different to my previous experience. The psychological support, the group support. It’s totally embedded in FNP and how you deliver the programme effectively. What I really love is it’s a nurse-delivered programme, which will be an energising shift from the consultant-led medical model I currently work within.

“I feel very excited to be part of the programme. I’m looking forward to joining my new team and I’m excited about what I can offer and what I can learn. I left the training with a feeling that this is definitely what I signed up for.”