Aim: to investigate emotional intelligence (EI) and its relationship to nursing leadership. Background: strong, effective leadership is core to organisational competency and significantly influences care quality. EI is the ability to understand one's own feelings and to assess and respond to the feelings of others. It is linked to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills, all of which are vital in leadership roles. However, insufficient research explores EI in nursing leadership from the perspective of nurse leaders. Design: a qualitative study employed interpretive phenomenological analysis methods, using a purposive sample of band 7 sisters/charge nurses/team managers (n=5) from one Welsh health board. Semistructured interviews were recorded and analysed in four stages. Findings: four clusters of themes were identified, each with two to three subthemes. These were: sensing others—the empathetic leader; experiencing the affected sense of self; strategies employed to build the team; and reading the flux of the organisation. Conclusion: although the nurse leaders were unfamiliar with the concept of EI, their narratives reflected some core values of EI. However, significant barriers around time, pressure and staffing levels impeded their potential to use EI to become more effective leaders. Nurse leaders should harness the power of emotions to influence others to achieve excellent care.

Leadership is about influencing others to achieve a common goal. However, this role can be an emotional burden due to the challenges, constant changes and relationships with others.

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Background: Unrecognised and untreated parental mental illness is a major adverse childhood experience with potentially lifelong consequences for health and wellbeing. In the United Kingdom (UK) health visitors provide a universal health promotion service to children aged 0-5 years, which includes safeguarding. This preventive work is highly relevant to policy aims of improving outcomes for children living with adverse childhood experiences, but is currently under researched. The aim of this study was to explore how health visitors promote young children's wellbeing when a parent has a mental health problem, and to co-produce strategies to improve child health outcomes. Methods: A mixed methods study was conducted, consisting of a cross-sectional survey and consensus workshops in Wales, UK. In phase 1 health visitors (n = 174) responded to an online questionnaire designed to explore the nature and scope of their preventive work with families experiencing mental ill health. For phase 2 providers of health and other support services (n = 38) took part in Nominal Group Technique workshops to co-produce strategies for better joint working to protect the wellbeing of children living with parental ill health. Results: We identified that health visitors routinely provide support to families where parents have a range of mental health problems, including severe mental illness. Most practice is focused on mothers with depression, and fewer respondents were confident about working with fathers. Unmet training needs were identified in relation to adult mental illness, particularly the impact upon children. Solutions to working more effectively with professional and voluntary agencies included raising awareness of professional roles and responsibilities, timely two-way communication, taking a strengths-based approach and maintaining a focus on the child.

The role of the nurse lecturer is to create a learning experience which facilitates the link between theory and practice. The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC, 2010) suggest that programmes designed to prepare nurses should offer a flexible, blended approach to learning, and draw on the full range of modern learning methods and modes of delivery and that simulation is recommended as a useful method of teaching and learning in order to help facilitate the link between theory and practice.