Person-centred Cultures: A FoNS Development Programme
This programme is closed for 2025 applications but will be open again next year
From March 2026, FoNS will welcome applications for this unique programme designed to support clinical nurse and midwife leaders to develop person-centred cultures in the workplace.
Now in its second year, this programme follows on from the hugely successful and transformative Inspire Improvement Fellowship. FoNS has been working with nurses and midwives for over 30 years, and is a leader in culture change work in the health and care sector. FoNS believes that workplace culture is what determines the experience of staff, patients and residents and that in workplaces that are person-centred, care will be the best it can be, staff will feel valued and enabled to innovate.
This programme benefits from FoNS’s immense experience in facilitation of learning and understanding of culture change in the health and social care sector. The transformative nature of FoNS’s programmes can be seen in ‘Our Stories‘.
It is practice-based – you learn in and from your own practice benefitting from FoNS’s hugely successful approach to learning and development.
The programme will be underpinned by the Person-centred Practice Framework (PCPF) (McCormack and McCance, 2020).
We welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds in any health or social care setting, from anywhere in the UK.
This is a fully funded programme. Year 3 will run from September 2026 to May 2027 and offers:
- Learning Blocks
The three learning blocks to:
- Develop skills as facilitative leaders of culture change
- Explore and enable the use of effective strategies for creating person-centred workplace cultures
- Promote continuous improvement
The blocks are:
| Block 1 Face-to-face | One and a half days, residential (face-to-face), September 2026 |
| Block 2 Virtual | Four full-day online workshops: October 2026 to March 2027 |
| Block 3 Face-to-face | Full day (with residential) workshop May 2027 The workshop is fully funded including reasonable travel expenses if required. |
The programme will be underpinned by the Person-centred Practice Framework (PCPF) (McCormack and McCance, 2020) and informed by FoNS’s extensive expertise in culture change in health and social care.
- On-going support
The Programme includes a variety of support mechanisms.
2.a. Support via virtual meetings/ telephone/email from a FoNS Person-centred Practice Facilitator to:
- Refine and use skills in facilitation to lead and develop their team
- Promote reflective practice
- Support problem-solving
- Undertake evaluation and actively share outcomes via report writing and publishing to spread learning across their organisation and more widely
2.b. Peer-to-peer mentorship, based on the Critical Allies Framework (Hardiman, 2017).
2.c. All participants are required to secure the support of an internal mentor (for example the participants line manager) who will ensure that support and time are available for culture change and practice improvement work.
- After the programme
All FoNS participants are warmly welcomed into the ‘FoNS family’, and are encouraged to continue their connection with FoNS, through writing blogs, attending alumni events and potentially participating in other programmes.
The programme is open to applicants from any care setting in health and social care across the UK. We encourage applications from across the UK, and from any health or social care background.
We welcome applications from all backgrounds.
FoNS is looking for nurses, health visitors and midwives who lead nursing and/or care teams at the point of care, who have a desire to create more person-centred workplace cultures for patients/residents/ service users and staff.
Applicants should:
- Hold a UK NMC registration
- Be leading a nursing and/or care team with direct patient contact
- Be the direct line manager for the members of the team
- Be willing to explore workplace culture and continuous improvement
- Be able to commit to all the workshop dates of the programme
Application process
- Read all the information on this page of the FoNS website
- Consider the technical and time aspects of this programme:
- You will need to be able to attend the face-to-face and virtual sessions and will need access to a computer with a camera and microphone that can use Zoom and MS Teams. You will need to be able to use a quiet private space.
- You need to be free for all the sessions (dates will be published as part of the application pack)
- Drop-in sessions will be arranged to enable potential applicants to find out more. These will be advertised on the FoNS website, through our social media and via our newsletter
We’ve put together some additional information in this ‘Frequently Asked Questions‘ document.