FNF Academy Member Symposium 2023
- September 20, 2023
On 5 September we gathered together 120 people at the beautiful Botanical Gardens in Birmingham. This number included Chief Nurses of our member organisations and the newly nominated Academy Fellows, as well as representatives from International Nursing and Midwifery Associations and some of our own Alumni Champions. In this blog, we hear feedback about the event from FNF’s Head of Nursing and Midwifery Engagement, Jess Sainsbury.
“The FNF Academy Member Symposium is certainly a personal highlight in the #TeamFNF calendar. The purpose of our annual Members Symposium is to facilitate in-depth engagement with our FNF Academy Members and community to glean intelligence from across the professions to inform future FNF provision. Feedback from this event is disseminated across the FNF Academy including our Subject Expert Groups to inform and influence agendas.
We were delighted to shine a light on Shared Governance with help from Chairs of our Members Advisory Group (Rosa Waddingham) and Shared Governance Forum (Louise Bramley) alongside shared governance expert Shona Browne.
Participants also discussed FNF’s intention to launch the FNF Academy Think Tank – a vehicle to raise the nursing and midwifery voice to influence policy and practice, create change, and support nurses and midwives to step into their authority.
In our commitment to maximising collaboration and discussion time, guests were given the time to input their own experiences on a range of nursing and midwifery related issues – and rotated between tables to share and learn on different topics: from Early Careers to Late Careers, from Sustainability to Global. Team FNF will be taking these discussions forward to influence our own work on these areas.
Personally, my biggest takeaway from the Symposium was the importance of having time and space to think and share, listen and learn with our #TeamFNF community. The diversity of thought and experience in the room was uplifting and I am particularly looking forward to our next Membership milestone: the welcome event for our first cohort of FNF Academy Fellows. (Meet two of them here: Chloe and Cerina)
They say a picture speaks a thousand words and I hope that the photos below help bring the event to life.”
To find out if your organisation is an #FNFAcademyMember, offering you access to all the benefits this brings, then click here.
If you aren’t a member, then you can join us – click here to find out more about the opportunities and getting in touch.
Sketchnote by @thepaedsnurse
Photos by Dignum Photography