‘Will you be our mentor, will you be my mentor?’ | Nursing Times

Reflecting on International Nurses Day brought back memories of the role that mentorship played in my experiences as a nurse and now nurse educator, and the role that mentoring university students has played in enabling a sense of belonging, and academic and career progression.

“The same institutions that developed strategies for recruiting international nurses should come together to ensure how to make international nurses feel more welcome”

Josephine NwaAmaka Bardi

In my view, to truly celebrate International Nurses Day, the nurses that we celebrate must feel a sense of belonging through mentorship-based integration that is fostered through policy, strategies, and practices.

I was recently excited to deliver a training session on public speaking to internationally trained Nigerian nurses. My forte is public speaking, standing in front of an audience, and being authentic.

Regardless of my love for public speaking, I was anxious when I walked into the room with all eyes on me.

Soon, it was time for me to speak, and anxious as I was, the audience made me feel at home with poignant questions that resonated with me as a nurse who has practised clinically in the UK and a Black female in academia (A positively controversial blog for another day).

At the end of my speech, I listened to the experiences of working in UK NHS hospitals as reported by the nurses, shared my experiences, and discussed some coping strategies.

Some phrases stuck to my mind: “Will you be my mentor, will you be our mentor?”, how can we keep in touch with you?

This question permeated the room, and it was a no-brainer for me, so it was no surprise that, by the end of that day, I had facilitated a mentoring platform through a WhatsApp group of now 93 internationally trained Nigerian nurses in the UK.

Since then, I have had the privilege of mentoring internationally trained nurses who have shared positive, culture shocking and challenging experiences of migrating to the UK.

While the UK government continues its international nurse recruitment campaign, the question remains: What is in place to mitigate the impact of culture shock and the lack of integration for nurses who trained overseas and migrated to the UK?

The UK government says: “We recognise the important role that international health and care workers play in health and care service delivery in the UK, and we are committed to ensuring that we recruit from overseas in an ethically responsible manner.”

Similarly, NHS England’s nursing workforce and international recruitment states that “recruitment from outside of the UK continues to feature as an important part of the workforce supply strategy of NHS organisations”.

While ethical recruitment and recruitment strategy might translate to transition to the UK for international nurses, it does not translate to integration into the UK community with persistent challenges to navigating issues, including but not limited to housing, workplace politics, and the right to language.

As a mental health nurse, nurse educator and mental health campaigner who migrated to the UK more than a decade ago, I am fully aware of the situational mental health (mental health experiences because of a situation) that are associated with the lack of advice and guidance, and a feeling of “loneliness in the midst of many” in the absence of advice, guidance, and mentorship.

Therefore, it is a privilege to provide mentorship for internationally trained nurses, including Nigeria-trained nurses in particular and Sub-Saharan-trained nurses in general,

Still, more needs to be done in terms of transition and integration through mentorship to support this workforce population.

My view is that the NHS and government should include mentorship as part of the international healthcare recruitment strategy.

Such a mentorship programme should take note of the cultural intelligence of the proposed mentor to enable experiential understanding between mentor and mentees.

Some may argue that the nurses decided to migrate to the UK and, as such, it is their responsibility to navigate and integrate into the UK.

Yes, but would you not prefer that the staff providing care to “us” have a sense of belonging and knowledge about what, who, where why and when of the country and healthcare system that they are now working in?

Indeed, there are differences in healthcare provision between countries and this should be a key reason for embedding culturally relevant mentorship programmes in the international healthcare recruitment strategy.

Bearing in mind that without a sense of belonging fostered through mentorship (Wright-Mair, 2020; Van Zyl, 2022) – individuals might experience anxiety due to feelings of uncertainty and workplace isolation – this is an urgent call for action for a strategy that includes recruiting culturally relevant mentorship programme in the international nurse’s recruitment.

By doing this, the feeling of being an “Outsider” will soon become the distant memory of the “Insider”.

In other words, the same institutions that developed strategies for recruiting international nurses should come together to ensure how to make international nurses feel more welcome to create a sense of belonging at work.

Dr Josephine NwaAmaka Bardi is a mental health nurse and associate dean for education and student experience, London South Bank University, and founder of Raise Awareness of Mental Health in Higher Education