NICU parent liason position

A Parent Liaison role has just been advertised for SickKids NICU ! (PDF)  This is a first paid parent role in the NICU to the best of my knowledge and an amazing opportunity to make an incredible difference in the lives of families and children when they are most vulnerable. Please circulate widely.

Date Posted:	2012-11-06
Employment Type:	Temporary Fixed-term (0.8 – 1.0 FTE)
Hours per Week:	30 hours per week (0.8 FTE)
Department:	NICU
Available:	Immediately
Description of Position:	The Parent Liaison will be an active member of the neonatal inter-professional health care team. In order to fulfill this role the Parent Liaison must be a parent of a graduate from the NICU at SickKids and will utilize wisdom of personal experience coupled with the unique perspective of being a family member in a health care team. The Parent Liaison will enhance overall family engagement in their infants clinical course of treatment in the NICU.  The Parent Liaison will establish improved communication processes with families to support their integration as a member of the Health Care Team.  This will be achieved through the initiation, implementation and evaluation of parent activities in the NICU e.g.  parent social time. Health education on how they can care for their infant in the NICU, provide guidance and support on understanding NICU practices e.g. hand hygiene. The NICU Parent Liaison will ensure the sustainability of parent programs and support future initiatives to support growth and coordinated care of the family care experience in the NICU environment.  The Parent Liaison will demonstrate a commitment to championing family care in parallel with organizational strategies and vision.
Qualifications:	• Post secondary degree/diploma in a related discipline (eg. Nursing, sociology, psychology, equity studies, etc.) or an equivalent of education and experience • Graduate parent of NICU ( must be one year post discharge) • Experience in project management would be considered an asset
Salary:	Commensurate with Experience
Available to:	Internal & External Candidates
Deadline:	2012-11-15
How to Apply:	External candidates applying to posted vacancies must submit a resume via e-mail to ex.careers@sickkids.ca quoting file number CPS12396-KS in the subject line of your e-mail. It is suggested to copy and paste the file number from this page to ensure it is captured correctly. Only applications submitted through ex.careers@sickkids.ca will be considered. External candidates must also submit a completed application for employment. Internal SickKids staff should review the ‘View Job Openings’ site on KidWeb or contact Human Resources with the file number for assistance. Please note that resumes must be sent in PDF or Word format only. General inquiries sent to this e-mail address will not be answered. SickKids is strongly committed to diversity within its community and welcomes application from visible minority group members, women, Aboriginal persons, members of sexual minority groups, persons with disabilities and others who may contribute diversity within our organization. SickKids is also committed to providing accommodations to persons with disabilities in our recruitment process. Accommodations are available upon request to all applicants, including applicants who are selected to participate in an interview, assessment or selection process. If you require any accommodations to fully and fairly participate in the recruitment process, we will endeavor to provide a suitable accommodation in a manner that takes into account the applicant's accessibility needs. We thank you in advance for your interest. Only those applicants selected for an interview will be contacted. In accordance with our Hospital policy, employment at SickKids would be conditional upon you providing the Hospital with satisfactory documentation of tuberculosis testing and your immunization status.

Big thanks to former NICU mom Janis Purdy and SickKids staff for making this happen, especially Nurse Practitioner Kim Dionne and Manager of Clinical Programs Audra Jesso.

Parent Charting : a family-centred breakthough whose time has come

I recently joined the PFACNetwork, an email list serve for staff and parents involved in family advisory work. As part of the new NICU family care committee I undertook to gather information about parent charting, which is the involvement of parent's in their kid's hospital chart. This involvement can extend from helping nurse's observe and measure liquid output to being responsible say for occupational therapy 'scores' for your child to direct parent input of data into the electronic care plan. In my dreams, I imagine a time that a parent can click on a link, enter a username and password and hit Comment. Up pops a little field into which the parent writes about positive moments and challenges, questions, reflections etc. Now the parent's thoughts are recorded forever beside those of the staff.

I was grateful to Joanna Kaufman, RN, MS, Information Specialist at the Institute for Family-Centered Care for recommending the article "A hospital takes up the challenge of offering patients open access to their charts as well as directing me to Dr Ted Eytan's blog focused on electronic health record issues. What becomes quickly apparent is that the main focus of parent charting is on the 1) the desire by adult patients to access a portable electronic chart that they have more control over 2) leading to a range of new services offering online charting, from Revolution Health to Google amid 3) perceived time savings and increased accuracy as medical staff update electronic charts in real time.

That "parent charting" in a paediatric setting is still in its infancy is confirmed by a 2005 study that interviewed nurse managers at 61 U.S NICUs to learn about parent participation in a range of NICU activities and which reports:

"Sixty-two percent of NICUs routinely allow parents to be present at medical rounds; 33 percent do not; and 5 percent allow it some of the time. Of the hospitals that allow parents to be present, 76 percent encourage parents to participate in the discussion while 13 percent report participation is physician dependent. Only 26 percent of the NICUs have a written policy regarding parent presence or participation in medical rounds. Substantially fewer parents participate in nurse shift changes. Only 25 percent of hospitals indicate parents are routinely allowed to be present, while 13 percent allow it some of the time. Few units encourage participation in shift change discussions. Parents are allowed to read their child’s medical record in 91 percent of responding NICUs. However, an overwhelming majority of units require or encourage parents to have staff present when the chart is read. Only 3 percent of NICUs allow parents to enter notes in their child’s record. (emphasis added)" ("Family Centred Care in the NICU", Children's Hospital's Today, Winter 2005, Mitch Harris, George Little M.D)