Suggested Learning Activities
This section is intended to assist you with embedding your skills in establishing and maintaining boundaries and in keeping awareness about them on the agenda, for yourself and for those around you. You could incorporate them into your personal development plan and make reference to the process and outcomes in your appraisals. You could also use them as a basis for working collaboratively with colleagues to ensure that boundary awareness is a continuing aspect of the professional culture in which you work.
01 Review the results of the questionnaires in this package
Go through each question, considering your answers and how they compare to the notes provided. List the areas where you remain uncertain or have identified a material gap in your practice or knowledge. Compile a priorities list of actions that you need to take and commit to embedding new ways of working into your personal development plan. Take responsibility for your learning and development and share your plans with mentors and colleagues.
02 Manage a boundary
Identify a particular patient or colleague with whom you are aware that you may have formed an attachment of some kind. Write down the words you will use to manage the boundary in a new way. Use the next opportunity you have to put this into practice.
03 Raise awareness about boundaries
Find an opportunity to discuss boundaries with colleagues; find ways of doing this that arise out of day to day experience. Share an experience of your own as a way of encouraging others to learn.
04 Teach others about boundaries
Find ways of discussing boundaries with junior colleagues. Notice as and when teachable moments arise and use them as opportunities for generating discussion. You might organise a learning session at a staff meeting, or make boundaries a focus for all activities for that week or month.
05 Increase your awareness of power differentials
Spend some time considering areas of your life outside work where you notice a clear power differential. This might be in your own experience with health professionals, and it could also be in areas unrelated to health and medicine, such as having you hair cut or your car repaired.