Not a nurse but more than a mother: the everyday geographies of mothering children with complex heath care needs

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the analysis of parent-recorded video diaries from a parent-driven campaign, #notanurse_but, supported by the charity WellChild. The campaign reveals the challenges that parents (predominantly mothers) face providing high level, ongoing clinical care for a son or daughter who has complex health care needs. A team of four researchers analysed 30 videos from the WellChild website, WellChild Facebook page, a dedicated #notanurse_but campaign Facebook page, YouTube and Twitter. An interpretative, inductive qualitative analytical approach was utilised. This paper reflects on the portrayal of mothering (it was predominantly mothers who produced the campaign videos) a child with complex health care needs. In particular, this paper considers the competing identities of mother and nurse that these mothers fulfil as part of their daily regimes in ‘being mum’. This paper also contributes to geographical discussions concerning methods and ethics of online data collection and the use of secondary online material.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• complex health care
• everyday geographies
• mothering
• video campaign

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Complex health care needs refer to health care needs that are substantial and ongoing. These can be the result of chronic illness, disabilities or following hospital treatment.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by WellChild and a contribution in kind from the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Medicine, Edge Hill University.