Newly-qualified health visitors and school nurses (preceptees) and experienced health visitors and school nurses (preceptors) who support the newly-qualified in a preceptorship programme, were invited as co-researchers to two separate co-inquiry groups to determine what shapes their role resilience. A wider group of health visitor and school nurses involved in preceptorship offered a consensus view on the emerging theory.

A background of low investment has led to the current health visiting workforce undergoing a rapid expansion in the number of newly-qualified health visitors in the last few years (30-40 per cent). This has placed additional strain on current preceptorship provision and those enacting their roles in challenging times with widespread changes to service provision.

Identifying issues as seen by the collaborators and giving voice to these counter-narratives, has been crucial to exploring mechanisms that support role resilience, positively influence preceptorship relationships and improve outcomes under existing contextual challenges.

Project timeframe

This research project commenced in October 2013 and ended in October 2018.

Project aims

This was a collaborative study combining co-inquiry and realist evaluation to study the narratives of those involved in preceptorship programmes. In the first phase of the co-inquiry process, co-researchers were asked to conceptualise role resilience in preceptorship, with reference to: What works for whom, in what circumstances and in what respects, and how? (Pawson and Tilley, 2004 p2). This lead on to the second phase to co-construct an emerging Preceptorship Resilience Framework.