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NHS Education for Scotland

A skilled and sustainable workforce for a healthier Scotland

Growing a Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Scotland Education Strategy

Growing a Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Scotland Education Strategy

Growing a Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Scotland Education Strategy

In September the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) education team launched its first education strategy. This was the result of significant collaborative working, tenacity and teamwork!

In FNP we often use elements of nature as a metaphor for how the programme is designed and delivered. This also informed our approach to the development of our strategy.

One of the ways we work with our clients is to consider their roots, their own ecology and what they can do well.

So, we did the same; by working with our clients, their families and colleagues within:

  • the FNP national and international community
  • NES
  • Scottish Government

We explored what was working well and what kept us grounded in stormier times and helped us bend and sway without breaking.

So grab your wellies while we walk through how we grew our strategy.

What did we find? We found that the International Guidance for delivering FNP education and the Core Model Elements (the recipe, licence standards) provide a secure foundation to build on. This included the three foundational theories that FNP is based on; attachment, self-efficacy and human ecology. These inform everything within the education programme and contributed to how we approached the development of the strategy.

We noticed how attachment in education can offer a sense of belonging, a connection with peers and an inherent sense of value in the learning process and how our strategy could and should influence this. We explored how our strategy would support self-efficacy (that belief in our own ability) through offering a range of experiences in all learning environments. We also considered how our ecology - how participants learn and develop through their interactions - was incorporated into the education programme and contributed to the development of mastery for our family nurses and supervisors.

We recognised the importance of the contribution we can make with colleagues to support the delivery of change to reduce health inequalities. We reflected how learning and education contributes to the effective, efficient and safe delivery of the FNP programme within Scotland.

So, what did we do next? We thought about what we wanted to do more of, what we needed to do differently and what we wanted to start doing.

We reflected on our NES strategy 2019-24 and aims. These include developing a framework to support the FNP workforce to advance key knowledge, skills, capability and proficiency within the evolving health and social care context in Scotland. We would do this by providing education and learning that is iterative in nature, inclusive of the wider roles of Family Nurses and Supervisors and able to accommodate local and national workforce needs and dynamics.

This gives us a strong “trunk” to build upon and keep us stable in the winds of change!

From this we developed six principle themes that we will be working on over the next three years and these will become the framework for sharing our learning and celebrating our successes



To support the launch of the strategy we created a short animation. This has been well received and is about to be shared on the FNP International webpage. Watch the animation

The FNP Scotland Education Strategy can be found on TURAS


September, 29 2021