The extent, variability and attitudes towards volunteering among nursing students: Implications for pedagogy in nurse education

Since the Francis Inquiry (2013) into failings in care at one hospital trust in the UK, government and the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) have focused on behaviourist solutions to nurses’ apparent lack of care and compassion. The concept of `values-based recruitment`, which aims to attract and select healthcare students, trainees or employees, on the basis that their individual values and behaviours align with the values of the NHS Constitution (Health Education England, 2015) is one such solution. However, a major problem with the notion of values-based recruitment in nursing and midwifery is that this individualises an issue more adequately conceptualized in terms of social relations. For example, Chattoo and Ahmad (2008) demonstrate that care is an emergent property of social relationships, and that the potential for caring cannot therefore be reduced to alleged qualities residing inside the person. In addition, values, and how these are enacted, are likely to vary according to class, gender and ethnicity (Skeggs, 2014). Values –based recruitment in therefore unlikely to provide effective solutions to ensuring nurses have the requisite skills for caring and compassionate practice, rather these skills need to be integral to the nursing curriculum. An alternative to values-based recruitment lies in conscious consideration of critical pedagogies, for example narrative pedagogy, which helps students to challenge their assumptions and think through and interpret situations they encounter from multiple perspectives (Ironside, 2006). Narrative pedagogy can be incorporated into the nursing curriculum through the use of structured volunteering activities, which, when followed by reflection may lead students to develop a more holistic view of society which acknowledges the importance of inequality and power relationships in understanding the needs of patients. This paper reflects on the potential for structured volunteering within the nursing curriculum to facilitate critical pedagogical approaches to learning about nursing.
References
Chattoo S and Ahmad WIU (2008) The moral economy of selfhood and caring: Negotiating boundaries of personal care as embodied moral practice. Sociology of Health and Illness 30(4): 550-564.
Francis, R. (2013) Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. London: HMSO
Health Education England (2015) NHS Constitution https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-... accessed 30.11.16
Ironside, P.M (2006) Using narrative pedagogy: learning and practising interpretive thinking. Journal of Advanced Nursing. Volume 55, Issue 4, pages 478–486, August 2006.
Skeggs, B (2014) Values beyond value? Is anything beyond the logic of capital? British Journal of Sociology 65 (1): 1-20

In conference program paper listed as:- Volunteering in the Nursing Curriculum: Opportunities to Enact Critical Pedagogy,
Mike O’Driscoll, Sue Dyson, Liang Lu, Olga van den Akker &
Nilam Mehta