Pitching the conference to your boss

Click here for an example email to your employer pitching your attendance at the conference

We know that it's a challenge getting the nod of approval from your employer or practice manager to attend a conference when it means asking for leave and potentially some financial support, even for an important professional development event such as the national conference for your workforce.

When you make a pitch to your boss, we suggest making time to have a chat with them or preparing an email. Use your knowledge of what makes your workplace tick - the priority areas. Approach the topic with your boss equipped with well thought out points on the value of this education for both your everyday role and for your workplace.

To help you out, we have drafted an example email to your employer that you can adapt to demonstrate the benefit of this professional development to your role, workplace and ultimately, health outcomes.

Hot tip: Highlight specific sessions in the conference program that align with your workplace’s key priorities.

• Is the healthy ageing of your patients a priority for your workplace? Sessions identifying how nurses can best manage 75 year old health assessments, dementia, osteoporosis, vaccinations, palliative care, mental health and other chronic conditions are covered in the APNA National Conference program.
• Sharpen up your hands-on skills with practical workshops covering the good, bad and the ugly of ear irrigation; the diabetic foot check; and managing chronic wounds, leg ulcers and compression in clinical practice.
• Meninococcal, pertussis, common travel diseases, influenza, adult immunisation—there will be plenty of practical learning to take back to your workplace from the numerous immunisation updates on offer.
• Get up to speed on the latest best practice guidelines in priority areas of health with updates from the peak bodies on kidney health, cardiovascular disease, the RACGP Green Book and more.
• You will be keen to adopt in your practice a number of the risk management strategies that Dr Jenny Gowan steps delegates through in her practical keynote on systems that can be put in place to prevent errors and boost quality and safety.

Pinpoint the areas of PD that will bring value to you, your team, workplace and patients, and it will be impossible for your boss to resist supporting your attendance at APNA's 2019 National Conference.

Getting financial support

There is a strong case for you to ask your employer to chip in for some or all of the cost of your conference registration - this professional development offers:

• updates in best practice
• exposure to innovative, efficient and replicable models of care
• handy resources
• upskilling in key priority areas of primary health care
• broadening of professional networks for future referrals and collaborations

all of which can be knowledge and skills that you take back to your practice to share and implement.

There are scholarships and educational grants out there for nurses – have you checked out some of these options?

Also, have you thought about contacting a pharmaceutical company for support?

Hot tip: A number of PHNs are sponsoring nurses in their area to attend APNA's 2019 National Conference - contact your PHN to see if they can support you.