CONGRATULATIONS to British Sign Language Society and Nursing Society our joint winners of Society of the Month!
For the first time in the competitions history we have two society to celebrate with this month! Both Nursing Society and the British Sign Language Society take the £100 prize for December’s Society of the Month!
Let’s take a look at their winning entries –
British Sign Language Society
NAME OF EVENT - Christmas Fundraiser in aid of SignHealth
HOW DID THE ATTENDEES PARTICIPATE? - The attendees participated by doing quizzes and taking part in a Kahoot. Member's of the society also performed two Christmas carols in BSL and filmed this for our YouTube channel. This was released as the grand finale to our event!
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? - We learnt how to sign two Christmas carols in BSL and we learnt about an amazing charity that do incredible work - SignHealth!
HOW DID THE EVENT BENEFIT STUDENTS? - The event benefitted students as they learnt how to sign two songs in BSL. They were able to join in a Christmas quiz and get themselves in the Christmassy spirit.
Let's check out the Christmas Carol Video which raised an phenomenal £870 for Sign Health! Find out more about how to make a donation here.
Nursing Society
NAME OF EVENT -
BSU Nursing Society Festive Extravaganza including a Virtual Advent Calendar and a Charity Christmas Quiz!
3 Guest Speakers Events - Mouthcare Matters, Research in Nursing and EBP, Mental Health and Self Harm support and awareness in nursing practice.
Resilience Café and Christmas Café (Joint events with SSGT).
PLEASE TELL US THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE EVENT -
Virtual Advent Calendar – The VAC was a daily event between the 1st and 24th December 2020. We created a website specifically for the festive period which can be found here The VAC would share self-made videos daily on our website, and social media channels. These would include top tips, fun facts, jokes, event adverts, recipes and Christmas surprises. The aim to help students (and staff) get into the festive spirit.
Charity Quiz The Charity Christmas Quiz provided students, staff, friends, and family with an opportunity to collaborate, have fun and enjoy some festive celebrations in the build-up to the holiday period whilst pitting their knowledge against one another to see who came out on top of the ‘Christmas Tree’ in our quiz. A delightful evening had by one and all and we were thrilled to raise over £250 for MIND.(Current total as of Jan 2021 £275 find out more about how to make a donation here )
Guest Speakers - Our 3 guest speakers this month have all come from practice learning environments where many students and members undertake their clinical registration, a mandatory requirement of registration with the NMC. Through participating in these events, students have been able to draw upon these professional’s expertise and knowledge to enhance their nursing practice and academic development. These topics have focused on Mental Health and Suicidal ideation and how as nurses we can tackle the ‘elephant in the room’ and hold those important conversations. Research and Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) yields an important role in our profession, our guest speaker at this event, Vivien, was able to share the principles behind EBP and the current studies being worked upon within a local hospital trust and their findings so far and how these have impacted ways of working in the trust and also how COVID-19 has impacted this too. Finally, our Mouth-care-Matters event provided students with an opportunity to learn about the principles and teaching of supporting patients with MC in the acute setting, how we can encourage engagement in this area and early warning signs where clinical intervention or further support may be required. These three talks will have supported students in enhancing their knowledge and understanding of these three areas which directly related to practice and make up several of our mandatory pre-registration proficiencies within our assessment or practice documentation required for registration as nurses at the end of the course.
Resilience Café and Christmas Café These were joint events which we co-hosted with the SSGT from the School of Health Sciences. These events were attended by members and students across all Health Sciences courses. The resilience café provided a safe space to discuss the concept of resilience, what resilience looks like and how we demonstrate resilience currently. We also discussed strategies to improve our resilience and undertook several activities to identify in which areas we demonstrate higher levels of resilience and discussed examples of what this looks like. As a society, we shared our experiences of placement and how resilience has supported us on placement and strategies we use as a coping mechanism too. We reinforced it was important to know that it’s not just a bounce-back ability and that it is how we can use previous challenges, both positive and adverse to support us in handling situations in different ways both in the present and in the future. The Christmas café offered an opportunity for participants to discuss how the term and year had been for them in a safe space. It was also an opportunity to talk about plans for the start of 2021 and how to plan for going into placement and the importance of taking time for yourself and selfcare.
HOW DID THE ATTENDEES PARTICIPATE? -
Our Festive extravaganza of events took place across a number of platforms including but not limited to : Zoom, MS Teams, Twitter, FB, Instagram, email and online collaboration and networking sites. We would engage with our members on a daily basis across these channels for our VAC. Zoom and Teams for our Quiz and guest speaker events and regular updates on social media and email.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN? -
We continued to learn and explore the different functions of Zoom and MS teams and integrated different forms of technology to support our virtual charity quiz. We embraced use of different apps and software to create our Christmas Advent Calendar website and used this to bring our members closer together. As a society where students are on placements at different times, scheduling is something that is at the forefront of our minds, to ensure that as many students as possible have opportunity to contribute, attend and benefit from the society, As nursing students, we are naturally flexible, but with the wonders and unpredictability of technology, we too have honed our resilience skills and had a Plan A,B,C in case of technology failure or unforeseen circumstances. This adaptive approach also ensures that our events are inclusive and open to all, as we wholeheartedly understand that access or confidence in using technology will be varying for all members. A particularly poignant phrase that came from our Mouth Care Matters guest speaker seminar was ‘ Putting the mouth back in the body’. This reinforced how often, in healthcare, we overlook the mouth and what happens within it due to focusing on the physical presentation of patients and not the whole picture. A lot of students mentioned this would be a big take home from this event. We have also explored other new tools and are excited to trial these next semester to build upon our action packed Semester 1.
HOW DID THE EVENT BENEFIT STUDENTS? -
Not only have our events benefited students, but they have also positively impacted staff, colleagues and external partners supporting us from practice learning and hospital placement environments. Students have had a plethora of opportunities to engage, collaborate and learn from our Festive Extravaganza of events. These have taken place at varying times of day across the week to try and capture as many students as possible. Through collaborating with partners from practice, students have been able to draw upon these professional’s expertise and knowledge to enhance their nursing practice and academic development. Furthermore, the Virtual Advent Calendar (1st-24th) December as shared on all of our social media channels and our specifically created website, has shared pictures, self-made videos and activities throughout the month to inform, advice and support students but also provide them with opportunities for distraction from assignments at these heightened times with activities such as baking. This encouraging the principles of self-care, resilience and looking after our mental health, as discussed within our resilience café and our mental health awareness session. The Charity Christmas Quiz provided students, staff, friends, and family with an opportunity to collaborate, have fun and enjoy some festive celebrations in the build-up to the holiday period whist pitting their knowledge against one another to see who came out on top of the ‘Christmas Tree’ in our quiz. A delightful evening had by one and all and we were thrilled to raise over £250 for MIND.
Let's check out some pictures from these wonderful events!
