Annette Marlow

The Whole of Community Facilitator model provides support for healthcare students’ professional experience placements (PEP) in rural regions in Tasmania. In Tasmania, rural PEP is challenged as healthcare facilities are often small and have limited capacity for staff to devote considerable time to supervising students during PEP. Recruitment and retention of the rural health workforce in Tasmania is sometimes difficult because the island State is geographically distant from mainland Australia, and predominantly classified as a regional, rural, or remote area. The University of Tasmania, College of Health and Medicine (the College) explored various initiatives to support rural workforce sustainability, and the project discussed addresses this issue by promoting rural healthcare facilities as potential employment destinations for students upon completion of their course. The model supports the delivery of high-quality supervision to students whilst undertaking rural PEP, to foster positive experiences and potentially influence their future career choices. A successful exemplar was trialled in 2012 and implemented statewide in 2017 using a Whole of Community Facilitation (WOCF) model. The initiative supports host facilities, supervisors, host staff, and students and promotes positive placement experiences. The initiative was designed in consideration of Tasmania’s rurality, and uses a flexible and responsive framework.

Health professionals require specific knowledge and a broad range of skills and attributes to work and reside in rural environments. It is vital students are offered the opportunity to undertake a rural professional experience placement (PEP) to ensure they develop a breadth of understanding of healthcare practice with opportunities to apply for rural positions after graduation. As such, it is imperative students have a positive rural placement experience which extends to their supervisors. Past research identifies barriers to a positive health placement experience relates to limited exposure to diverse placement environments and multidisciplinary learning opportunities for students and supervisors (Smith et al., 2017). To overcome these barriers the Whole of Community Facilitator (WOCF) model of support was implemented in fourteen locations throughout rural Tasmania. This model engages a dedicated health professional who is responsible for learning and teaching and support for students and supervisors, whilst also building capacity and capability of additional organisations to host students. The WOCF is an important communication link between the student, healthcare organisation and students' universities. This paper examines the WOCF model of support stage one evaluation findings. Overall, this model was well received by students, supervisors and organisations; particularly in the areas of student welcoming and learning and teaching, support and guidance. However, the WOCF role requires further development to address their competing work demands, time constraints and healthcare organisation requirements. Despite these, the model enables healthcare organisations and supervisors to focus on preparing the next generation of rural health practitioners.

 The health profession workforce is challenged by the increased numbers of undergraduate students requiring supervised experiences in environments where service delivery is the primary goal. Given the increased need to recruit and retain suitably qualified and educationally prepared staff into these sometimes under resourced locations, guidance of health profession students, in particular students of nursing, in rural areas of Tasmania is a topical issue. This situation was acknowledged in 2010 when the Commonwealth Government’s Department of Health and Ageing sponsored a local project to increase the number of opportunities for students to undertake professional experience within non-traditional and rural healthcare settings. The project goals included identifying and acknowledging those healthcare professionals who supervised learners; providing guidance, mentorship and resources; and building capability and capacity in environments to host students. On project completion, further Commonwealth funding became available through Health Workforce Australia to continue the project aims. Over six years, an educational process focusing on the needs of rural healthcare professionals related to supervision and support of undergraduate nursing students was established. An evaluative approach enabled the use of Weimer’s personal accounts of change methodology to analyse and critique the application of developed learning and teaching resources. Initially resource development focused on current knowledge, skills and understandings of supervision of learners by health professionals in practice. From the findings, the scope of support broadened to include development and delivery of workshops to enable the supervisors of students to develop a pedagogical understanding of learning and teaching in healthcare settings. Evaluation suggested supervisors require guidance and mentorship related to the ‘how’ of learning and teaching. More specifically they wanted synchronous and asynchronous access to consistent and contemporary learning and teaching information in a timely manner. Given their geographic isolation, this educational support was delivered in a variety of innovative ways, including digital resources, online programs, videoconferencing and face-to-face learning opportunities. This paper outlines the processes and outcomes of developing a collaborative approach to increasing the capability and capacity of health professionals, in particular registered nurses, who choose to supervise undergraduate students during their rural workplace-based professional experience. Â