Welcome to tweetchat 2 of 5 covering a variety of topics exploring how we help our internationally recruited nurses to #StayAndThrive 

The #StayAndThrive project is an opportunity for us to understand contributing factors impacting wellbeing, clinical effectiveness, and a sense of belonging both at home and at work. Following on from understanding these factors we'll look to discuss how we as individuals and organisations can improve the short and long-term living and working conditions to help our international nurses #StayAndThrive. 

You can see all 5 of the tweetchats listed here. 

We very much welcome everyone to join our #StayAndThrive chats including both new and settled international nurses and of course the many of us that care alongside them every day.

Supporting International Nurses To #StayAndThrive & Belong

Why stay AND thrive?

#StayAndThrive goes beyond wanting to ensure that international recruits stay with us. The focus lies in understanding what really matters to international recruits and how we can help everyone (Staff, Patients,Visitors) recognise the sacrifice they make by leaving their country, culture, family, friends, and work to come and work for the NHS, as well as the value these highly skilled individuals bring.

How can we make our international colleagues feel welcome and how can we make this feel like home? Our Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Midwifery Officer national ethnic minority action plan focuses on ensuring staff are protected and safe, staff are encouraged to engage and are welcomed into staff networks. Staff are represented in decision-making, valuing their opinions, suggestions, and contributions, all of which contributes to helping them to feel part of the team, having a sense of belonging.

Everyone deserves to feel welcome, and happy in their place of work and in their community. Everyone should feel comfortable being their true selves, reflecting their own cultural imprint, upbringing, and surroundings. The UK is one of the largest diverse countries in the world. We should be recognising and appreciating the opportunities that this brings. The NHS cares for and employs people of multiple nationalities. We want to celebrate this diversity, enhance cross-cultural understanding, ensuring all internationally educated colleagues are integrated into life and work in the UK.

What should we do when colleagues arrive to make them feel welcome, have a sense of belonging like they are part of the team?

With a growing understanding that we, as nurses, should be applying the same practices and aims we extend and strive to achieve for each other as we do for our patients, we can cast our minds back to our training and our time exploring Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, originating in the mid-1950s. For those that need a refresh, here you go:

The first two tiers are often seen as our most fundamental of needs, you are unlikely to stay anywhere without a level of assurance of these for very long.

"Love and Belonging" might be described as some of the first emotions or the introduction in current terminology as our sense of wellbeing; something we are all personally acutely aware of as nurses currently.

A sense of belonging is key to being able to thrive, thriving is important for an increased opportunity for sustained health and wellbeing.

Statistic 

This chat aims to provide us with an understanding of how to create conditions where internationally educated colleagues feel a strong sense of belonging both at home, at work, and within the community they live in.

We'll be asking the following questions during this tweetchat:

• How would you define "belonging" in the community where you live? What does belonging mean to you and what does belonging feel like?
  
• How would you define "belonging" in a professional space? 
• Who's role is it to support an increased sense of belonging for our International Nurses?
• Have you seen any good examples within your organisation that recognise improving a sense of belonging?
• Reaching potential impacts a sense of belonging so how can we help our international nurses reach their potential?
• How can we encourage international nurses to join our staff networks/nursing associations? What prevents them currently?
• How can the wider workforce help to support international nurses, making them feel like they belong?
• What can you do to improve your International Nursing peer's sense of belonging?