Purpose: The purpose of this presentation is to share outcomes from the HRSA Nursing Workforce Diversity project awarded to the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence (Center) in 2015. This project focused on four main areas; 1) Mentoring, 2) Emerging Nursing Faculty Support, 3) Transition to Practice in Critical Care, and 4) Family Support Partnership. Mentoring, coaching and collaboration were key foci that ensured success in all areas of this project. The goals, strategies, and outcomes of this project will be shared along with recommendations for continued work to increase nursing diversity in order to meet the needs of the rapidly growing diversified patient population. There is a huge disparity between the number of diverse patients and the amount of diverse nursing workforce. Lessons learned and pearls gained will be discussed to explore future methods for bridging this gap. This presentation will focus mostly on the mentoring program as it relates most closely to this audience.
Methods: After a significant amount of building relationships, networking and forming partnerships, a structured 2-day Mentor Training Institute (MTI) was planned and developed to train ethnically and racially diverse, experienced clinical nurses with varying levels of nursing education and specialty area expertise. Mentors and Mentees were recruited from both health care systems and undergraduate nursing schools, respectively, across Colorado through collaborative measures. Once mentors are trained and paired with nursing student mentees, structured professional coaching is provided monthly for 1 year to enhance and reinforce concepts learned. Mentoring relationship is 1 year in length. A comprehensive list of on-line and local resources was compiled to address social determinants of education to mitigate any potential challenges that may impede student success. Collaborative partners were established and comprehensive assessment plans were completed to determine effectiveness of the program.
Results: Analysis is currently in progress and will be complete by the time of this presentation. Based on preliminary data, we can infer that our programs were successful and worth replicating. In 2 years, >60 ethnically/racially diverse mentors were trained. Over 70 undergraduate students have been successfully mentored. Resources utilized by mentees helped them be successful. Mentors rated their training as effective to very effective in helping them learn mentoring skills and increase mentoring confidence levels. Mentors verbalize appreciation of coaching which has helped them stay focused, present and motivated. Mentees validated this by rating mentor support as moderate to extremely supportive. Collaboration was key to success. NCLEX pass rate to date is 100%.
Implications: This work has brought nursing education and clinical service industries together to increase nursing diversity in the state. Both groups have come together at our Annual Diversity Summits to explore strategies to increase diversity. Holistic review and admissions into nursing schools has been explored and has been implemented in 2 nursing schools as a result of this work and other Colorado schools are planning to follow suit. Cultural awareness and competency training is also forthcoming. Additionally, many mentees who completed the program are now paying it forward as mentors while others are continuing their higher education as a result of their experiences. These actions will increase diversity in Colorado to bridge the diverse patient and nursing workforce gap.