Applying Driscoll’s Model to reflect on Health Promotion Project

This reflective essay explores and evaluates the experience of working as a team to develop a health promotion presentation. It analyzes the deterioration of communication and housekeeping that occurred in ensuring the assignment’s consistency in structure and flow. By applying Driscoll’s Model of Reflection, the essay frames around three key elements including ‘What’, ‘So What’, and ‘Now What’.

Nursing
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Applying Driscoll’s Model to reflect on Health Promotion Project
Introduction
This reflective essay will explore and evaluate my experience of working as a team to
develop a health promotion presentation. Specifically, it will analyze the deterioration of
communication and housekeeping that occurred in ensuring the assignment’s consistency in
structure and flow. By applying Driscoll’s Model of Reflection, I will frame my essay around
three key elements including ‘What’, an objective look at what occurred in the
aforementioned areas and how it relates to future practice (Driscoll 1994). ‘So What’, where I
identify how these events/ actions affected me and why it is an issue to reflect on. Finally, in
the ‘Now What’ section of the essay I will reflect on what I've learned, the proposed actions I
will undertake in the future and how the benefits of this experience will underpin my
prospective nursing career.
What
As part of the Driscoll Model, I will first explain what initially occurred when our group
agreed on how everyone will communicate and plan out our assignment (Coleman, and Willis
2015, pp.906-911.). After registering our team with our lecturer in class, I organized a group
chat on WhatsApp messenger that I felt members could use to relay information, present
thoughts and plan meeting dates. I witnessed early on the group chat enabling members to
pass on relevant information of our assignment to everyone, identify our health promotion
goal and coordinate our first meeting outside of class and in Parramatta Library. At this
meeting, we allocated and planned accordingly with the template guidelines what each
member was going to write. We also came to a group consensus that key information such as
the project’s goal, target audience and health promotion strategies needed to be consistent in
all aspects of the assignment. We believed at the time that each part of the assignment could
be individually completed, and a coherent structure and flow of the presentation would be
agreed upon afterward.
I commend the progress that we had made early on, but it later degenerated affecting the
arrangement and cohesion of the presentation. I observed several times where a member
would mention a question for a specific source or seek help with grammar and framing of
their part on WhatsApp and there would be no response from anyone until a later date.
Meeting dates cancelled in the last minute because several members had work and were
unable to attend. And a deadline that I had personally placed on the completion of each
section and references not being met until a day before the presentation. This gave us a
limited amount of time to check the consistency of the assignments and prepare adequately
for the presentation.
So What (how I felt about the experience)
I felt like I had failed as a group admin since the group was never effective in meeting our
objectives. It seemed to me like there things I did wrong as a leader that made all the
communication ineffective. I understand that communication is only effective when feedback
is elicited (O'hagan et.al pp.1344-1355). However, in our case, there was a lack of feedback.

The group remained silent even after the question was asked. The member who needed help
on grammar check also did not get a response. We also could not manage to hold a meeting
as planned since some members had work and could not attend. I, therefore, felt like I did not
manage to involve everyone when deciding on the meeting date because, then, they could us
updated us that they are going to work and then we can settle on another date that is effective
for everyone. I also felt sad that meeting dates were canceled in the last minute yet all along
there was no update concerning the same and even after canceling the meeting, there was no
member who came or even responds with an idea of planning another date when we are all
available.
I also felt that the problem came after our first meeting since earlier we were able to
communicate in the group. Everyone could rely on information about our assignment,
identify health promotion and we even managed to coordinate our first meeting outside the
class and in Parramatta. This clearly shows that we starting failing in between maybe due to
lack of serious or inability to maintain a group
Now What
I will, therefore, ensure that in future when I am involved in organizing a WhatsApp
messenger group or even just any other social group, I will involve everyone in the group in
all matters pertaining the group. I will make sure each and every member will get a role to
perform so that they can all feel part of the group. I will also work to make all the members
of the group open to each other, such that, hey will always feel free to even communicate
their issues prior to the meeting dates. For example, they can communicate about the change
in shifts at work that will make them not be able to attend a scheduled meeting. Since
effective communication has feedback, I will encourage all the members to always give their
views or response whenever one asks a question or raise an issue. One may even reply they
do not the issue being asked or that he is not sure of the response. That will be much better
than silence.
I will also ensure that an agreement is made and noted such that each member will always
beware of the agreements made. This will make each and everyone know that they are
committed to a particular group task and failing to meet the set objectives or complete are a
given task may have some consequences especially to the group as a whole.
Conclusion
I believe that effective communication and proper planning in the beginning stages are
necessary while working in a collaborative environment (Fransen et.al 2011, pp.1103-1113).
This is necessary in order to ensure that all plans being made become successful. I think a
nurse must not just be able to communicate well with their patients but also with other health
professionals that they work with. This will create a better and enabling environment for
everyone involved

References
Coleman, D. and Willis, D.S., 2015. Reflective writing: the student nurse's perspective on
reflective writing and poetry writing. Nurse education today, 35(7), pp.906-911.
Driscoll, J 1994, ‘Reflective practice for practise’, Senior Nurse, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 47-50,
viewed 15 May 2019.
Fransen, J., Kirschner, P.A., and Erkens, G., 2011. Mediating team effectiveness in the
context of collaborative learning: The importance of team and task awareness. Computers in
Human Behavior, 27(3), pp.1103-1113.
O'hagan, S., Manias, E., Elder, C., Pill, J., Woodward‐Kron, R., McNamara, T., Webb, G.
and McColl, G., 2014. What counts as effective communication in nursing? Evidence from
nurse educators' and clinicians' feedback on nurse interactions with simulated
patients. Journal of advanced nursing, 70(6), pp.1344-1355.