Speaker: Sarah Brown Blake, Assistant Professor, University of California, Chico
What new learning strategies & resources have you implemented to prepare nurses with stronger skills in leadership, well-being, & self-care?
Sarah Brown Blake: Here at Chico State School of Nursing. We really wanted to nurture the community, we wanted to provide students and faculty with some resources, And we also wanted to engage with our partners by having our students do some teaching in the clinical setting. We focused on our 5th and final semester where our students were learning about leadership and resilience in their sort of final leadership course. We use self-care for new and nursing students from Sigma Theta Tau, we used a Headspace app, we used a variety of resources from the toolkit to support workshops that we did on building personal resiliency and many other resources. And those allowed the students to draw on resources to do some of their own teaching in the community.
What AACN Essentials competencies are you preparing nurses with these new learning strategies?
Sarah Brown Blake: Chico State School of Nursing really focused on three domains: two, nine and 10, but a majority of our interventions and the resources we used were focused on two particular sub competencies. So, sub competency 2.8 which is really about promoting self-care in individuals, families and communities. And then sub competency 10.1, which is about demonstrating and developing that commitment to self-care and well-being in the practicing nurse, or in this case, nursing student. So that's really where we focused our time on specific Essentials.
What have been the greatest successes or surprises you have had during the implementation of these new learning strategies?
Sarah Brown Blake: Our greatest success or what we thought was the most successful was really how of cost effective and easy, it was to kind of replace some content and to highlight resiliency, self-care and wellness in the fifth semester curriculum, and we can really transition that into other semesters, particularly the first. But across all five in our, in our BSN pre licensure curriculum. But I think the surprise was how engaged our community partners were, our practice partners, and the students were, everyone sort of acknowledged that this was needed. And so to kind of implement it and have some of that content really started the conversation, and so that was both a surprise and a success.
What partnerships or collaborations are your nursing school leveraging to extend & sustain the integration of your school’s new curriculum?
Sarah Brown Blake: I think the pilot just really allowed us to kind of practice how we're gonna do some of this communicating of what we're implementing in real time in our curriculum as it relates to the new Essentials. We already have really positive, really great working relationships with our clinical agencies, so this is kind of a good practice run. And I see this being easily sustained as we continue this discussion and continue to build and develop our curriculum to meet the new Essentials.
How do you envision these new skills and competencies benefiting nurses entering professional practice and the healthcare system as a whole?
Sarah Brown Blake: As mentioned previously, we already - students, practice partners, faculty - already identify resiliency and a training and practice and resiliency, self-care and well-being as a part of leadership and management and is incredibly important. So, I already think that we sort of extended our reach in terms of incorporating into the curriculum and doing some out outreach with our partners. So, I think that this is really going to impact our ability to prepare pre licensure nurses as they enter a very stressful and compromised work course. So, I think the benefits are absolutely there and very plain to see.
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