A year in review: 2020 at Presence

What a turbulent year 2020 was. Our understanding of ‘planning ahead’ and ‘certainty’ drastically changed in this past year. Nurses were, and still are, at the forefront of the war against the coronavirus pandemic. In this year nurses yet again walked the extra mile, and from deep within themselves showed care, compassion and indeed, presence towards one another, and towards patients who had nurses beside them to help fight their lonely battle. Nurses, we salute you and thank you for your selfless love and care.

#nursingpresence #year2020

Welcome to our blog post in which we reflect on 2020 by sharing updates on our research outputs, the edited collection (book) on Presence in Nursing and the new short course on Presence in nursing. We had a visit from gurus in presence, Prof Andries Baart, Monique de Bree and colleagues. We have an exciting new development, namely the Caring Presence YouTube channel and we are continuing to share our news on the Presence website and the Caring presence in nursing Facebook page.

We had visitors!

We are grateful that before any lockdown was in place, we had a visit from Prof Andries Baart and his wife, Monique de Bree. They are from the Presence Foundation in the Netherlands, and are significant role players in the development of the Presence Theory. They were accompanied by Prof Jaco Hoffman and Prof Vera Roos from the Optentia research focus area, Faculty of Humanity, North-West University and Prof Doris Bohman, a professor in nursing from Sweden.

Prof Andries Baart is known as the father of the Presence theory and he founded the Presence Foundation in the Netherlands. He is involved as professor at the University of Utrecht, and as extra-ordinary professor at the Faculty of Humanity’s Optentia research focus area at the North-West University. Monique de Bree played a significant role in the development of the Presence theory from a practice viewpoint, and is an experienced Presence worker in the Netherlands. We shared lovely moments with this pair, and proverbially sat at their feet while they shared their wisdom, like many times before during visits with them.

Later the same day Prof Andries delivered a public lecture, “An ethic of care: The soft voice in ethics”, Hosted by the Faculty of Humanities in collaboration with the office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and innovation of the NWU. Click here to view the lecture

Research outputs

Several students completed their studies on presence, contributing to our understanding of presence in nursing in the South African context. In many ways, these studies are pioneering work in this field. One of the studies involved exploring and describing the lived experiences of professional nurses working in a rural public hospital of caring presence, conducted by Ronèl Hobbs. In another study, by Lillian Kalimashe, we discovered that there is indeed a relationship between nurses’ presence and medication adherence by psychiatric patients. Precious Motshabi conducted a study on aspects that could hinder the practising of presence, and Christelle Oukouomi Noutchie did a systematic review on how presence can be cultivated. In another study, Tiisetso Mofokeng concluded that nurse educators do practice presence in spite of challenging circumstances. All of these researchers have published a research article. Some of their work will also appear in our edited collection (book) on presence. To read more about these studies, visit our blog.

Edited collection (book) on Presence in Nursing

We are happy to report that we have submitted our book on Presence for pre-press review to the Cambridge Scholars. Two experts in the field of presence, nursing and research reviewed the draft edition of the book, and wrote positive feedback. Visit the Resource page on the Presence website for an outline of what you can expect in the book. Keep on watching this space!

Caring presence in nursing YouTube channel

Visit the Caring presence YouTube channel to see these conversations. Emmerentia had conversations with nurse leaders in South Africa, such as Prof Mavis Mulaudzi and Prof Siedine Coetzee who were the first two researchers ever in South Africa to receive research chair appointments from the National Research Foundation. Another well-known nurse leader, Dr Nelouise Geyer, who is the CEO of the Nursing Education Association of South Africa also shares her views on presence in one of the videos on the channel. Many other nurses, including nurse educators, nurse researchers, masters and doctoral students, nursing students, nurse leaders in the clinical field and experts in the field of presence, personality and spirituality were also interviewed. An exciting consequence was that one of these videos is featured on the website of the Presence Foundation in the Netherlands. If you are interested to be Emmerentia’s guest on this channel, please let her know at presence4goodcare@gmail.com.

Presence website and Facebook page

Please remember to browse our Presence website for wonderful resources and interesting information on presence in nursing. Also visit our Facebook page and contribute by sharing your story on presence. Thank you for being part of this community and for helping us spread the word on presence!