Sunday, 17 November 2019: 3:15 PM
Poverty is complex, multi-dimensional and multi-generational in nature. To break the cycle of poverty requires sustained and thoughtfully executed policies and interventions. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 1: No Poverty is a call to action that requires meaningful collaboration and collective effort. Nurses have an ethical imperative to champion social justice and reduce marginalization of peoples, such that all may thrive with dignity and higher levels of well-being. Nurse leaders are in a privileged place to support effective connections, collaborations, and catalyze transformative change in policies and practices to reduce health, social and economic disparities, improve health outcomes locally, globally and engendering equity and social justices in societies. It is critical that nurses understand the profound and substantial costs associated with poverty on the economic and social fabric of societies, and look at innovative ways to assist people to break the cycle of poverty. While there is work underway to reduce poverty in many jurisdictions and communities, little evidence is available on how to create effective multi-partner collaborations to influence policies and have major impacts on vulnerable and marginalized populations living in poverty. This session will focus on understanding the critical imperative of eliminating poverty locally and globally, and the role of nurse leaders in influencing policies and large scale impacts to eliminate poverty. Ensuring senior policy makers receive high-quality, timely and accessible research evidence and advice from leading researchers, implementation experts, and people with lived experiences of poverty requires the creation of unique spaces for dialogues and actions. The use of the Best Brains Exchange (BBE) to create effective connections, collaborations, and catalyze transformative change in policies and practices to reduce health, social and economic disparities, improve health outcomes, and engender equity and social justices in societies will be discussed. The BBE was used to examine leading research evidence and best practices to inform policy and actions to reduce poverty. This BBE has helped to foster the development of relationships between senior policy makers, academics and researchers, and community partners with shared interests in eliminating poverty. This unique forum was an intentional strategy, chosen deliberately to create a multi-partner collaboration aimed at transforming culture and influencing change. The BBE has served as a catalyst for successful capacity building across sectors to move forward in a synergistic manner the collective efforts of policy and decision-makers and communities to reduce poverty. The specific steps engaged in the BBE multi-partner collaboration between government, academic/research funding agency, scholars and researchers, people with lived experiences of poverty, business and non-profit community organizations will be presented. Best practices to activate knowledge transformation and create synergies between scholars, policy decision makers and affected populations will be highlighted. Lessons learned and solutions to successful multi-partner collaborations will be shared.