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AACN AWARDED
HELENE FULD HEALTH TRUST GRANT TO
SUPPORT NURSING EDUCATION IN COMMUNITY-BASED CARE
WASHINGTON,
D.C., September 8, 1998 -- The American Association of Colleges
of Nursing (AACN) has been awarded a two-year grant by the
Helene Fuld Health Trust to support college and university
programs that prepare nurses to deliver needed community-based
care. The $126,000 grant provides for faculty workshops, curriculum
development, a published monograph, and technical support
to develop and implement community-based nursing education
models in baccalaureate-degree programs.
The
award to AACN was among $2,496,000 in grants by the Trust
to support 30 organizations and programs focused on nursing
curriculum and faculty development in community-based care.
AACN was one of three national or regional associations to
receive funding.
"As
health care moves beyond the hospital to more front-line primary
care centers, clinics, and other sites throughout the community,
nurses must draw upon new sets of skills to deliver care in
an expanding array of settings," says AACN President
Andrea R. Lindell, DNSc, RN. "The products of this grant
will help to further the important inroads by nursing schools
in bringing accessible community-based care to individuals
and families at a time when such need is accelerating dramatically."
The
cornerstone of the grant will be two three-day workshops,
to be offered in spring 1999, which will provide faculty with
content, resources, and innovative models of instruction for
preparing nurses for practice in community-based settings.
The workshops also will give faculty opportunities to begin
developing curriculum models specific to their own institutions.
Prior
to attending, faculty teams will be asked to complete an assessment
of local resources and conditions, such as demographics and
health and transportation resources, that affect health care
delivery in their communities. Upon completing the workshops,
teams will be expected to return to their institutions and
continue to integrate community-based learning throughout
the nursing curriculum. "Sharing their information and
expertise, and developing the support and participation of
the rest of the faculty, will be a major responsibility of
each of the project's teams," Dr. Lindell explains.
In
the grant's second year, consultants will be available to
help faculty develop solutions to any problems encountered
in planning and implementing the community-based models.
Workshop
presentations and discussions, together with examples of model
educational programs that demonstrate innovation and collaborative
partnering, will be published in a monograph that will be
disseminated nationally to schools of nursing and the profession
at-large. Exemplary models also will be recognized at the
AACN annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The
Helene Fuld Health Trust is the nation's largest foundation
devoted exclusively to nursing students and nursing education.
Its current areas of interest are leadership development,
educational mobility, and curriculum and faculty development
in community-based care.
The
American Association of Colleges of Nursing is the national
voice for university and four-year-college education programs
in nursing -- the nation's largest health care profession.
Representing more than 500 member schools of nursing at public
and private institutions nationwide, AACN's educational, research,
governmental advocacy, data collection, publications, and
other programs work to establish quality standards for bachelor's-
and graduate- degree nursing education, assist deans and directors
to implement those standards, influence the nursing profession
to improve health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate
and graduate nursing education, research, and practice.
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CONTACT:
Robert Rosseter
(202) 463-6930, x231
rrosseter@aacn.nche.edu
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