To set up as a DAFNE centre, you will need to meet the following criteria and resources.
Established healthcare professionals
- 1 diabetes specialist nurse
- 1 diabetes specialist dietitian
- 1 diabetes consultant diabetologist / specialist registrar
- You will also need to consider access to administrative support for the DAFNE service. The administrative hours required will depend on how many courses you run.
Educator qualities/competences for DSNs and dietitians
Knowledge and experience
| Essential | Desirable |
| Understanding of aetiology, diagnosis and management of type 1 diabetes. | To have experience of teaching groups. |
| Be in a role that can include DAFNE course delivery in your job plan. | |
| To have worked as part of a specialist type 1 diabetes team for a minimum of 1 year. | |
| To have ongoing responsibility for management and support of type 1 patients. |
Qualities/competences
| Essential | Desirable |
| A willingness to take on skills normally outside the traditional role of a dietitian or a nurse. For example, dietitians develop their insulin dose adjustment skills and diabetes specialist nurses develop their carbohydrate counting skills. | Familiar with methods of peer assessment. |
| Empathy with DAFNE philosophy. | Familiar with the use of personal development plans. |
| Desire to work in a patient-centered way to encourage and support behaviour change. | |
| Ability to develop and maintain communication with people on complex matters, issues and ideas and/or in complex situations. |
The following steps must be completed before training can commence:
1 - DAFNE consortium agreement
A consortium agreement and service level agreement (SLA) will need to be signed on behalf of your organisation. It is important that the individual who signs on behalf of your organisation has financial authority for the service covered by the consortium agreement. The individual needs to have accountability for the diabetes service and authorisation within the standard financial instructions to sign the consortium agreement and SLA.
Please contact the central DAFNE team if you are interested in becoming a DAFNE centre and the necessary paperwork will be issued.
2 - Costs
Raise a purchase order for the total of the following:
- Annual contribution (based on 2 active educators) - £4,553.61 (at 2020-21). This figure will fluctuate based on the number of active DAFNE educators within your service.
