Competition: Share your story to celebrate the International Year of the Nurse & Midwife!

Thanks to all the nurses and/or midwives who submitted a story for the Nurse & Midwife Support Celebrating International Year of the Nurse and Midwife Story competition. The judging panel is considering the entries and the winners will be notified in late November.

The winning stories will be shared on our website and the stories will be read by the authors in a podcast with the authors interviewed by Mark Aitken, Stakeholder Engagement Manager.

Celebration is an important part of life. Taking the time to recognise and reflect on milestones keeps us all motivated, particularly during prolonged periods of difficulty. 

When the World Health Assembly designated 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, we were excited: this was our year for celebration. With all of the obstacles that this intense year has served us, it may feel like the wrong time to celebrate, but that makes it all the more important as we all need to keep filling up our emotional cups!

Mark Aitken — Stakeholder and Engagement Manager for NM Support shared his feelings around storytelling this year:

“Today in the mail I received my ANMF ‘celebrating 200 years since the birth of Florence Nightingale’ badge; celebrating the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. It gave me cause to pause, reflect and celebrate my 30-plus-year nursing career.

Surprisingly the COVID-19 pandemic life disruption has provided me more time to reflect, think and reminisce about this great profession and my career. Incredible friendships, people cared for in the best and worst of times, teams supported to do their best work and traveling Australia to promote Nurse & Midwife Support and hear incredible stories from nurses and midwives.

Many of these stories have made me laugh, some cry and others fuelled my pride for the professionals we support. It made me want to hear more of your stories, which is why we are launching this competition.”

We want to hear your stories so that we can celebrate the successes and acknowledge the incredible work nurses and midwives do to care for and support others.

We want to hear any story that celebrates the experiences of nurses and midwives. It could relate to babies being born, birthdays, getting hitched, acknowledging anniversaries and key milestones in life, completing qualifications, being promoted at work and enjoying small successes in a world out of kilter. It could be about that patient that sticks in your mind and the experience that you felt in caring for them. Or it could be about a particular time in your career and how you made your way through it.

We want to hear it however you best feel you can express yourself. You could write a story or poem, illustrate your story, or record a song, video or podcast. Tell your story in the way that feels right to you! 

Check out some of the stories on our website to help you get started: 

• Always going to be a midwife: Helen’s story
• Nothing human is strange to me: Jackie’s story of 60 years in nursing
• Field notes on death
• Podcast: Death, dying & grief with Lea McInerney & Carole Arbuckle
• Podcast: Work, life & mental Illness with Sarah Russell

If you don’t think you have a story to tell, pause, breathe and reflect on a job well done. Celebrate YOU and the incredible work you do to care for and support others.

This moment of mindfulness video may assist you to focus on your story and celebrate it:

Then get creating. We want to hear from you! There will be prizes for the two best stories and of course a celebration.

An incredible conference attendance or education package to the value of $1000 for the winner of one great nursing story and one great midwifery story. The winners choose a nursing or midwifery conference to attend, or nursing/midwifery related education course and NM Support will cover the expenses to the value of the prize money.

The winners will also get to share their story on the Nurse & Midwife Support podcast. Have a great nursing or midwifery story to tell? We want to hear it, share it and celebrate it. Your story matters!

Please note: Entries are now closed.

If you feel worn out, stressed, anxious, depressed, overwhelmed or just not quite right in response to anything in your life, please contact Nurse & Midwife Support. We’re 24/7 anonymous, confidential and free no matter where you are in Australia. Call 1800 667 877 or visit the website.