School Nurses' perceptions of undergraduate children's nursing safeguarding education

Safeguarding children is a substantial practice area for children's nurses and school nurses, remaining a challenging environment to work within. The literature suggests that professionals involved in safeguarding have been under-prepared by their training to work in this area. This small qualitative study aimed to explore school nurse perceptions of their undergraduate children's nursing education to ascertain if they were adequately prepared to practice in this area.

This study used interpretative phenomenological analysis as a methodology, and three practicing school nurses, who are qualified children's nurses were interviewed. Themes highlight that undergraduate education did not prepare them to practice in safeguarding through a combination of factors. These included lack of exposure to practice in this area as a student and as an inexperienced staff nurse; lack of adequate succession planning; and lack of information sharing, leading to a feeling of practice isolation.