Alliance empowering aged care nurses
Hundreds of members along with partnerships with aged care providers are among the first-year achievements of a new professional body for older age nursing.
The Gerontological Alliance of Nurses Australia launched in October 2022 with a simple aim: to raise the profile and number of nurses looking after older people in Australia.
The initiative – led by University of Canberra and University of Wollongong – does this by offering a forum to support the professional development of Australia’s aged care and gerontological nursing professionals.
The alliance targets nurses interested in the speciality of older people – those over the age of 65 – and looking after all their complex comorbidities, says GANA co-founder Dr Kasia Bail. One year on, GANA is doing “fantastically”, says Bail – a conjoint professor of gerontological nursing at the University of Canberra.
“We have well over 300 members; a keen group of predominantly registered nurses. But we also include enrolled nurses and assistants in nursing,” Bail tells Australian Ageing Agenda.
“That includes student nurses who might be studying while they’re working and have these pathways of enthusiasm for older person nursing.”
Among the benefits of the alliance, says Bail, is that GANA shines a light on the important work these people do. “Sometimes aged care isn’t necessarily seen as a specialty and so this is recognising that they’ve got a whole bunch of different skills, knowledge and attitudes towards working with people that they can take forth into the world and into their clinical practice.”
Specialist gerontological skills include advanced care planning, palliative care, dementia and related behaviours, delirium assessment and complex medication management, she adds.
Bail shares the presidency of GANA with fellow co-founder Victoria Traynor – a professor of nursing at the University of Wollongong. Traynor is also the founding director of Aged and Dementia Health Education Research – ADHERe – a centre of interdisciplinary researchers generating evidence in gerontological studies.
For an annual fee ranging of $30 to $50, GANA members get access to online webinars, events, other members to network and work with, and information on professional development.
It’s about “recognising yourself as being a professional, having a career avenue and seeing the different pathways and different future potentials that you might be wanting to do, such as becoming a CNC [clinical nurse consultant] or an educator, or doing a PhD,” says Bail.
We believe in the power of collaboration and continuous learning
Jenni Hutchins
The first year has also seen GANA teaming up with aged care organisations seeking to support their staff. “We’ve started up a partnership with some aged care providers who have seen the value in supporting that professionalism of the workforce and they’ve been buying membership for their staff,” says Bail. “We’ve had celebratory events, and we’ve handed out certificates and used that as an opportunity to celebrate these nurses and care workers.”
These partners include Warrigal – which provides aged care and retirement living services in Canberra, and the Illawarra, Southern Highlands and Queanbeyan regions of New South Wales.
On International Nurses Day – 12 May – last year, Warrigal chief executive Jenni Hutchins launched a sponsorship initiative to provide an annual professional membership to GANA to 100 of the organisation’s nurses.
“Warrigal was enthusiastic to partner with GANA to support their vision as we believe in the power of collaboration and continuous learning in order to enhance the lives of older people,” Hutchins tells AAA.
“This partnership exemplifies our unwavering support for the nursing profession in aged care and underscores our commitment to providing exceptional services. It’s a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the dedication and expertise of our amazing nurses.”
Warrigal’s partnership with GANA benefits staff and the organisation, says Hutchins. “There is a great strength when registered nurses come together to progress the gerontological specialisation, and this partnership will continue to foster career advancement within our organisation and inspire registered nurse specialists into the future.”
The establishment of this professional body for the many committed and specialised aged care registered nurses also benefits the sector, says Hutchins. “Recognition as a professional body garners respect for the industry and has the potential to attract other RNs that may be interested in a specialised aged care career but not be sure how to take that next step. GANA can assist in progressing these career paths with the information and support they provide.”
Hutchins eagerly recommends GANA to other service providers and encourages her counterparts to take the opportunity to join the initiative in its beginnings. “GANA is developing a vibrant and education-led professional gerontological body that will support many aged care registered nurses, while cultivating an environment of professional growth and innovation in this wonderful specialty we work in called aged care – a service that all Australians will at some time need in their life, or the life of their most precious loved one.”
Bail hopes many more aged care organisations do take up this opportunity to support their staff through a GANA membership. Doing so tells staff their value and service extends beyond the organisation where they work to the whole community, she says.
It’s saying “you have a bunch of skills that are recognised by the wider nation as being valuable. And rather than keeping it isolated in the organisation, we’re giving you recognition and access to evidence-based practices, scholarly discussions and other leaders who are trying to find ways to forge gerontological nursing forwards,” says Bail.
Other functions of GANA include a network to distribute research – both evidence as it’s developing and the dissemination of findings – and a shared voice such as to contribute to position statements.
This is about “having a united front so that we can be putting together consultation papers and making sure that we’re informing policy and other developments that are happening across the nation with a unified gerontological nursing front,” says Bail.
We want to ally with other nursing organisations and other multidisciplinary organisations
Dr Kasia Bail
Another milestone achieved in its first year is GANA becoming a member of the Coalition of Nursing and Midwifery Organisations – an alliance of over 50 national associations that work together to advance the nursing and midwifery profession.
While featuring a wide range of nursing specialties, the national group previously had nothing on older persons nursing. Even though, says Bail, aged care nurses have the highest proportion of any nurses in Australia as the largest specialty group.
This adds to why a big part of GANA’s work is to bring recognition of gerontological nursing frameworks and other evidence-based strategies.
These include, says Bail, the Gerontological Nursing Competencies framework and mentoring programs for people who haven’t had the same transition-to-practice opportunities through new graduate programs, or are unsure of the next step in their career.
Elsewhere GANA is aiming to host three-to-four events each year to bring members together. To date, these events have featured:
- career planning including anticipating or having ambitions about options of where to go
- student nurses talking about their experiences of doing clinical placements in aged care
- certificate pathways for assistants in nursing/personal care workers.
The latter includes ensuring these individuals “can be celebrated and heralded for the work that they’re doing and have an opportunity to showcase what they’re doing – because they’re the backbone of aged care,” says Bail.
GANA is also focused on partnering with likeminded organisations – with announcements in this area likely in early 2024 (find out more about GANA here).
“We want to ally with other nursing organisations and other multidisciplinary organisations,” says Bail. “We’re not trying to steal nurses from any other organisations. We want them to see the value of that integration.”
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