Grant: Healthy and Productive Work - Partnership Grants

CHALLENGES: The current healthcare system is fragmented, depersonalized, disease-centric, and costly. Patients and families often feel powerless, disconnected, and voiceless, as do the nurses who care for them. Nurses report that dissatisfaction with the work environment is sufficient to make them want to leave nursing. Nurses often experience systemic sex and gender discrimination expressed in bullying, verbal abuse, and devaluing of their contributions, impacting their physical and mental health. What is needed is a paradigm shift from the current deficit-based management approach to a strength-based approach. Strengths-Based Nursing (SB-N/C) is both a philosophy and value driven-approach to guide the actions of clinicians, leaders, and managers. SB-N/C enhances, develops, and works with peoples' existing and potential strengths to bring out the best in the person and to contain, minimize, and/or circumvent what is not working. This shift requires re-training clinical managers and leaders to work through a strengths-based lens to build communities of caring and create safe workplaces for nurses ensuring that nurses can then provide safe, quality care to patients and families. GOALS & OBJECTIVES: The overall objective is to transform nurses' work-life environments from deficit-focused to strengths-focused through developing leaders/managers who are guided by a strengths-based approach to improve their health and productivity. To achieve this, we will refine a Strengths-Based-Leadership and Management (SB-L/M) Integrated Training Program for clinical leaders and managers with 3 components: 1- create and use innovative, multi-media teaching materials for story-sharing and sharing circles; 2- refine a 12-module course that integrates the best practice of healthcare with a SB-N/C approach paying attention to sex and gender issues in the workplace; 3- develop mentorship with situated coaching to ensure implementation and sustainability. Using a mixed-methods design, we will evaluate the processes and impact of this program on clinical leaders/managers, point-of-care nurses, and quality of patient/family care. PARTNERSHIP: To accomplish the objectives requires a multi-disciplinary Partnership. Partners continuing from Stage 1 (PDG) are: McGill University, Ingram School of Nursing, the birthplace of SB-N/C and SB-L/M; Concordia University's Center of Oral History and Digital Storytelling, with considerable expertise in multi-media story-sharing, collecting and analyzing oral histories and their impact on bringing about social change; and two clinical hospitals in Toronto, SickKids and Holland-Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. Both hospitals have robust family-centred care, a developmental approach underpinning their pediatric care, and a commitment to SB-N/C in their strategic plans. Added to Stage 2 (PG) are: Two newclinical partners in Quebec, the Jewish General Hospital, Department of Nursing and CIUSSS-Ouest-de-L'Ile-de-Montreal, both of whom are committed to SB-N/C and strengthening their nurse-managers who directly supervise point-of-care nurses; the Canadian Nurses Association, the national voice of Canadian nursing profession that advocates on policy and legislation; and Concordia University's John Molson School of Business, bringing their experience and expertise in teaching operations, management skills, and in evaluation of the program. Our team continues collaboration with an award-winning visual anthropologist, and a knowledgeable scholar in sex and gender issues. Ultimately, this Partnership will contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors that create improvements to or obstacles in nurses' work-life environments, so that we can then inform policy and legislation at local, national, and international levels.