Education/training
Nurse transforms Barbados health-care systemIt's a personal success story not many of us can duplicate. Liz Benneian |
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 [ 2005-12-14 ] |
Centennial College nursing graduate
Imagine immigrating to a new country and pursuing a professional education, then taking that knowledge back to your homeland to help transform public services there.
Angela Crawford, a passionate advocate for the nursing profession, quality patient care and youth, has become a force for positive change in her native Barbados. As part of a team of senior public servants, Crawford is working to revamp Barbados' health-care system.
Crawford graduated from Centennial College's Nursing program in 1972. Her college training provided her with the credentials to qualify as a Registered Nurse in Ontario.
Subsequent nursing positions at Scarborough's Rouge Valley Centenary Hospital allowed Crawford to gain vital experience and further professional development she has drawn on throughout her 33-year nursing career working first in Canada, then in Barbados.
Crawford is currently president of the Barbados Registered Nurses Association (BRNA), and is a member of the Child Care Board of the Barbados Ministry of Social Transformation.
She brings the highest standards of professionalism to everything she does.
In her role with the Health Sector Rationalization Study, Project Design and Implementation Unit, Crawford is helping to introduce quality management practices at five major health-care institutions in Barbados -- important changes that eventually will be adopted by every hospital in the Caribbean nation.
With the goal of bringing health care to where people live, work and play, teams of BRNA volunteers have organized the first men-only health fair, operated a HIV/AIDS outreach service in a mobile trailer, brought a night-time health fair to a popular beach resort and provided a health education and service program to Barbados' marginalized minivan workers.
Her compassion for others is evidenced in her work as a member of the Child Care Board of the Barbados Ministry of Social Transformation. Crawford realized many abandoned and orphaned children were spending their lives in institutions. She began to motivate staff and work with the media to make the public aware of child adoption opportunities.
During her tenure, public acceptance of adoption has increased dramatically, financial allowances for adoptive parents doubled, and hundreds of once-institutionalized children have found homes with caring families.
Crawford brings her concern for youth into her private life, mentoring youth in her neighbourhood and supporting children at her former primary school.
The communication skills emphasized in her Centennial program equipped her for the often difficult task of building partnerships and managing change in her profession, as well as in the national health-care system as a whole.
As Sally Shaw, the project co-ordinator, Leadership for Change, International Council of Nurses in Geneva, Switzerland, says: "Angela can build good interpersonal relationships that let her work with, and through, others. Her effective communication skills also help her work effectively with the media and with community leaders."
Crawford cites Centennial's "preceptorship" training approach that links nurses with students in clinical placements as the inspiration for the national mentoring program she implemented for Barbados' nurses.
Mentoring is also an important part of her personal interaction with other nurses.
"As leader of the BRNA, she's made a conscious effort to develop the younger members, resulting in renewed interest and cohesion, and a more business-like approach," says Thelma Henry, the assistant director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados.
Crawford's Centennial experience also fostered a lifelong love of learning; she has completed 10 programs of study since her first college graduation in 1972.
It all adds up to an impressive track record for a young woman who returned to her native Barbados with a valuable memento from Canada: professional expertise.
For more about Centennial College's Nursing program, visit: www.centennialcollege.ca/nursing.
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