Managing parental groups: personal impact of a group leadership course for child healthcare nurses

Abstract

Clarifying the role of group leader and adding knowledge about group leadership and dynamics seems to have increased the self-confidence for child healthcare nurses in group leadership. Improved confidence in group management might motivate the child healthcare nurses to further develop parental groups to attract the parents who currently choose not to participate.

Walk the talk: Leader behavior in parental education groups

“…In addition to professional awareness, the findings illustrate that leaders need group leader and pedagogical skills. Group leadership training has been found to provide leaders with important tools and a clarification of the leader role when leading PE groups (Lefèvre et al, ).…”

Leaders’ limitations and approaches to creating conditions for interaction and communication in parental groups: A qualitative study

“…According to expectation states theory (Berger et al, 1974;Berger and Zelditch, 1998), it is possible that the parents accord the leaders diffuse status characteristics related to general perceptions about their professional roles and, consequently, expect them to mediate knowledge about the issues mentioned above. Instead, the leaders' desire is to facilitate communication in the PG and let the parents construct knowledge through their interactions with each other (Forslund Frykedal et al, 2016;Lefèvre et al, 2015Lefèvre et al, , 2017. As Goffman (1990) argued, individuals do not always adhere to their formal roles, especially if they are convinced that other roles might be more useful in fulfilling their ambitions.…”

“…The leaders of the PG are primarily midwives in AC or nurses in CHC; both are hereafter referred to as leaders. There is a lack of specialized training in group leadership for the leaders (Ahldén et al, 2008;Barlow et al, 2009;Lefèvre et al, 2016Lefèvre et al, , 2017. Therefore, it is unsurprising that in a nationwide survey of CHC nurses, nearly 69% said that lack of training in group leadership is the primary reason that some groups fail to meet the national goals for PG (Sarkadi, 2008).…”

“…Parental participation and activity is likely to lead to greater opportunities for achieving the group’s goals, but it involves the leader relaxing their control of the group in order to provide opportunities for the parents to actively share information and knowledge (Sahlsten et al, 2008). Unfortunately, as a leader, it can be difficult to abandon an expert role in which one mediates knowledge rather than letting the parents construct knowledge through interaction with each other (Forslund Frykedal et al, 2016; Lefèvre et al, 2015, 2017; Nolan, 2009). We know that group leadership in PG affects the parental role and how parents in a group connect and communicate with each other (Forslund Frykedal and Rosander, 2015; Lefèvre et al, 2015, 2017).…”

“…Unfortunately, as a leader, it can be difficult to abandon an expert role in which one mediates knowledge rather than letting the parents construct knowledge through interaction with each other (Forslund Frykedal et al, 2016; Lefèvre et al, 2015, 2017; Nolan, 2009). We know that group leadership in PG affects the parental role and how parents in a group connect and communicate with each other (Forslund Frykedal and Rosander, 2015; Lefèvre et al, 2015, 2017). It is therefore important to look at the PG from the point of view of the leaders’ own experiences of leading PGs and their attempts to moderate interactive processes to facilitate interaction and communication between parents.…”