Innovation paves way for new approach to Educator Accreditation
Angela Buesnel and Gemma Ibberson
In October 2023, the DESMOND team from the Government of Jersey: Health and Community Services won the Celebrating DESMOND Award for Innovation, for developing and testing new innovative ideas in their DESMOND service.
Angela Buesnel and Gemma Ibberson completed their training in early 2023 and began delivering face-to-face DESMOND sessions to people in Jersey who live with type 2 diabetes. Being part of a new team, Angela and Gemma were keen to become Accredited DESMOND Educators.
To become an accredited DESMOND Educator, the Educator must deliver the DESMOND programme to participants while a Quality Development (QD) Assessor observes their delivery.
For DESMOND teams that deliver online sessions, the QD Assessor can easily join and observe a session. However, Angela and Gemma were only delivering face-to-face sessions requiring an Assessor to travel to Jersey. This presented a logistical challenge due to the requirement to travel to Jersey, staff availability and deadlines.
The idea of recording one of their DESMOND sessions also presented a problem as participant consent would need to be obtained for filming. Angela and Gemma contacted the DESMOND QD team and together they produced a solution. The Jersey team would livestream their session to the Assessor, which does not involve any recording, removing the need for participant consent.
The Jersey team worked hard to ensure that they were prepared for the livestreamed session, acquiring new equipment and running practice sessions to test the best way to use the new equipment including where to place the camera and microphone in the room to optimise what the Assessor could see and hear, so that it was as close to the Assessor being in the room as possible. This ensured that everyone was confident on the day of the assessment and the session could start without delay for the participants.
Alison Northern, Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC)’s Implementation Lead, explains: “Angela and Gemma’s hard work and can-do attitude to solving any problems that arose during the process has paved the way for an innovative approach to Educator Accreditation. This enables us in the DESMOND Head Office to support more sites without the need for travel.”