Suzanne McDonald

• I provide responsive and flexible child and family focused care across diverse sites in the region depending on staffing levels and deficits. I deliver quality primary health care in the settings of the community health clinics, clients homes and immunisation clinics.
• As a casual family and child health nurse I am able to assess my environment, identify key clinicians for escalating care and begin providing child centred care with minimal orientation and support.

• Working in a fit for purpose mobile van, I deliver specialist care and support for families experiencing complex early parenting difficulties.
• My focus was to increase parental confidence, resolve concerns, educate and offer practical advice.
• As a clinician working in isolation I relied on my advanced clinical assessment skills, decision making and evaluation of planning and care.
• I took responsibility for my own professional development to ensure I provided evidenced based, high quality care to all families I worked with .
• I took the initiative to build community engagement and awareness of the service, by identifying keys stakeholders in the community including daycare centres, GP's, librarians, neighbourhood centres and local child and family health nurses. Visiting these services and providing them with written and online resources about Tresillian.
• I delivered parenting education sessions to promote parenting confidence related to infant cues, introduction to solids and challenging toddler behaviour.

• Working as a member of the talent pool it was crucial that I orientated myself to the working environment, adapt to new settings and deliver high quality care. The specialties I operated in were Maternity In Patient Unit, Special Care Unit and the Endoscopy Unit.

• This was a 2 month locum position as the sole child and family health nurse in the rural outback town of Roma. The service was struggling to attract and retain child and family health nurses, relying on agency staff to provide the service.
• I quickly cultivated rapport with clinicians directly involved in the care of children and families in the health setting. Focusing on aboriginal liaison officers, midwives, allied health staff, administration officers, visiting paediatricians, child safety officers, school based youth health nurse and the child develop team.
• I delivered care to vulnerable families in outreach communities on a rotational basis. Providing developmental screening, growth surveillance, breastfeeding support, immunisation clinics and parent /infant attachment support to families experiencing social and financial disadvantage and geographical disadvantage
• I maintained and enhanced the new parent group to strengthen community connections and improve support for local families. Asking for feedback from parents I was able to establish their needs and implement community groups to deliver education sessions to the parents, such as speech therapists, and queensland ambulance service.

• This position succeeded my previous role of registered nurse and place me in the advanced practitioner role of a clinical nurse.
• As part of my role in promoting growth and development of children and families with identified vulnerabilities I closely consulted and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders. These involved the Child Development Service, Allied Health Professionals, Paediatricans, Child Protection Unit and the Clinical Nurse Consultant, Benevolent Society, ACT for Kids, Multicultural Families Organisation, and Community Allied Health Services.
• Working under the framework of The Home Visiting Program I delivered advanced care to vulnerable families and children in out of home care in diverse settings that would suit the family including playgrounds, community settings and the clients home.
• At the time the service did not have a formal process in place for evaluating care or measuring outcomes. Understanding the importance of knowing if care is effective and responsive , I took the proactive approach of checking in with families after each visit to gain informal feedback. I documented this in clients medical records and presented it to my peers during team forums.
• I am dedicated to quality improvement and joined the working party to review and strengthen the Home Visiting Program, extending this further to investigate how outcomes and family experiences can be measured. Reviewing education materials to ensure they were evidenced based, collaborating with interstate and regional child health services to learn how they provide a service to vulnerable families.

• In this role my scope of practice was a registered nurse, I delivered care to families in diverse health settings of the newborn drop-in clinic, breastfeeding drop- in clinic, clinic consults, school readiness clinic, home visiting.
• I collaborated with my team of CNC's and Clinical Nurses when I identified a vulnerable family or child to escalate care and offer them the appropriate level of care to promote the infant or child's development.
• I followed the health services policies and procedures related to home visiting risk assessment, referral pathways and child safety.
• As part of the school readiness assessments I completed comprehensive healthy hearing screening using audiometry and tympanometry. Referring to the Audiologist and Hearing Australia if I identified a variant.

• I worked within a highly diverse community that includes culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families, those with low literacy and health literacy, and families experiencing various forms of vulnerability and risk. In this context, I adopt a strengths-based, family-centered approach to care that is inclusive, accessible, and respectful of cultural differences.
• On a weekly basis I worked in the community clinic specifically for CALD families. A worked together with a professional translator to ensure families received unbiased, accurate and confidential communication and their concerns could be freely expressed.
• I advocated for building community relationships by attending the Midwifery Group Practice meetings at Village Connect and attending the Outreach Playgroup Hub of Woodridge State School for refugee families and CALD families that attended the school.

• I secured a position on the Transition to Practice Nurse Education Program after beginning employment as a child and family health nurse at Beenleigh. My practice was supported through working in collaboration with a Clinical Preceptor.
• I was given exposure to the specialised service of Ellen Barron Family Centre, where I gained knowledge in how to support parents struggling with sleep and settling and assisted them in growing their parenting confidence.
• Under the guidance of the clinical preceptor I conducted developmental assessments using the Parent Evaluation of Development screening tool and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire secondary screening. Developed my confidence in identifying maternal mental health concerns and domestic and family violence and how to escalate care.

• This position was my first role as a child and family health nurse. As a beginning practitioner I developed my skills of working in partnership with families in the primary health clinic, early feeding drop- in clinics and universal home visiting.
• I liaised with families of children aged 0 – 5 years to promote health and normal child development. I identified at risk families and children, escalating care through collaborating with the CNC and NUM.
• I developed my skills of using primary and secondary child developmental screening tools. Competently used the EPDS as a screening tool to identify perinatal mental health and referred onto appropriate internal and external agencies.

Birth suite, maternity in patient unit, maternity home visiting program