ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter is aimed at familiarising students with the notion of competencies in children’s nursing.Competency-based practice has become a fundamental aspect of care delivery in child health settings for both student and registered nurses. In terms of nursing education, a competencybased framework was developed by the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing,Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC, 1999a), now adopted by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), and was implemented at national level. This NMC competency framework has been used to structure this chapter, as it reflects the changes that have taken place in nursing education.The first part of the chapter briefly addresses the following three key questions:
The remainder of the chapter uses explicit examples from children’s nursing practice to illustrate how competency-based practice can be achieved within the child health context.We challenge you to reflect upon your experiences when caring for children and families in a variety of settings and relate those experiences to the achievement of the competencies in children’s nursing.
