Janette Irving of Bradford District Care Trust wins Mentor of the Year at the Student Nursing Times Awards
The award recognises the important role Janette has played in the education of student nurses and midwives, including many from the Faculty of Health Studies.
Janette heart and passion has always been in frontline services; working with service users and their families to improve their quality of lives and helping to develop the new generation of learning disability (LD) nurses in Bradford & Airedale as a mentor to nursing students.
She is particularly skilled at identifying strengths and weaknesses and encouraging her students to identify their own learning needs; thereby instilling the confidence they will need in post-registration practice. Under her guidance they develop their own plans to negotiate learning opportunities with other clinicians and providers, in order to fully meet their competencies whilst she maintains a watchful eye over them.
In so doing, they experience working with a full range of multi-disciplinary clinicians, learning how their role differs to nursing and when to involve them in someone’s care. Janette also encourages participation in clinical/service governance meetings; thereby embedding knowledge of and the importance of governance in providing quality, safe and effective services.
When evaluating their experience, Janette is able to give constructive feedback that is always evidence based and this in turn encourages students to research the evidence needed to reference their own work; thereby instilling the notion of always ensuring their practice is evidence based.
Janette though believes instinctive gut reactions are equally important in nursing and is keen to nurture this instinctive intuition in her students; which gives them the confidence to question research and not just accept it as fact. It also gives them the courage to challenge other professionals when they think something is not right.
Janette is an extremely competent mentor who is committed to her students and no matter how busy her schedule, she will always make time for them. They know that they can contact her at any time whether it’s a practice dilemma or a personal problem they are dealing with. Janette provides a supportive, friendly, comfortable and safe learning environment for her students whilst maintaining the clear boundaries that a professional partnership needs; thus empowering her students to develop positive feelings towards nursing and a sense of belonging to our team.
Throughout her career Janette has mentored many students, some of whom have gone on to become high achievers in the NHS and elsewhere; NHS directors, commissioners and university lecturers.
Janette is now set for retirement, and the award is fitting tribute to a fantastic career. Her passion and inspiration will continue to live on through the many nurses she has mentored and in whom she has instilled the confidence and courage to speak out and make a difference for the people they work with. With her unconditional love for the people she serves and the people she works with, Janette really is the embodiment of the 6 C's, exemplifying the very best of practice, which her students are then eager to model.
The University of Bradford and our students were also nominated for the following awards:
- Sarah O'Donnell - Care Maker of the Year
- Dorcas Lambert - Outstanding Contribution to Student Affairs
- Return to Practice - Course of the Year