Promoting family nurse resilience through Family Nurse Partnership education in Scotland: A continuous quality...

Family nurses delivering the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) program in Scotland provide intensive, relationship-based care to young parents with complex trauma histories. This emotionally demanding work can contribute to moral distress, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Education that embeds trauma-informed pedagogical strategies may help mitigate these challenges and promote nurse resilience.

To explore family nurses' perspectives on how the FNP education program prepared them for practice and trauma-informed pedagogical practices contributed to learner engagement, emotional safety, and professional development.

A cohort of family nurses (n = 14) who completed the FNP core education program between 2019 and 2021 across eight Health Boards in Scotland.

This initiative applied a mixed-methods questionnaire design as part of a continuous quality improvement process. Quantitative data were collected using Likert-scale and agree/disagree items assessing perceived preparedness, learning environment, and teaching strategies. Qualitative data from open-text responses were analyzed using conventional content analysis.

Respondents (n = 11) reported that the education enhanced their knowledge, skill, and confidence in delivering trauma-informed, relationship-based care. All nurses endorsed high levels of psychological safety, trust in educators, and engagement with learner-centered teaching methods. Educators' use of trauma-informed strategies, such as co-constructed learning agreements, mindfulness, appreciative feedback, and emotionally attuned facilitation were seen as pivotal in promoting resilience, emotional regulation, and professional identity formation. Role modelling by educators were highlighted as especially valuable.

Embedding trauma informed care principles into both curriculum and pedagogical strategies contributes to nurse resilience as a teachable, dynamic capability. Educators have a pivotal role in creating safe, positive learning environments through developing these trauma informed pedagogical strategies, role modelling and offering mutual respect to promote the emotional readiness, confidence and professional identity required to enable family nurses to thrive in their role.