California Strategic Planning Committee for Nursing
Recruitment Team
Minutes
March 5, 2001
Present: L. Miller Askew, J. Martin Holland, S. Keating, Guest: K. Bray
The meeting took place in Oakland. The Recruitment Team met with Katie Bray, Co-Chair of the Coalition for Careers in Nursing in California (CNCC). The attendees discussed the on-going collaboration between CSPCN and CNCC. K. Bray described the current activities of CNCC as they apply to its goal for recruiting a diverse nursing work force as well as improving the image of nursing through a mass media campaign. The members of the Recruitment Team described its efforts in building diversity as well and ways in which potential students could receive information about nursing and its educational programs. The attendees agreed that the two organizations’ overall goal was the same and that the strategies to accomplish them were complementary to each other. CNCC and CSPCN will continue its collaboration with CNCC through its liaison, Arlene Sargent who is a member of CNCC.
S. Keating, recorder
Email and conference call meetings
April 1 through July 30, 2001
Numerous contacts were made among J. Martin Holland, L. Miller Askew, and S. Keating related to the Recruitment Team’s activities. L. Miller askew received a $6000 grant from St. John’s in Santa Monica to produce a recruitment videotape. The Team agreed that the theme of the tape is diversity in its broadest sense, i.e., ethnicity, gender, and career opportunities. Through L. Miller Askew’s efforts, Senator Ortiz and Assemblywoman Thompson participated in the filming and are very supportive of it. It will be ready sometime in the fall of 2001. S. Keating prepared a grant proposal for the Helen Fuld Health Trust on recruitment. She was assisted by the team members and members of the Oversight Implementation Team. The purpose of the grant is to distribute the videotape across the state and to convert it into a CD-ROM for distribution to middle and high schools through nursing student associations. The grant was submitted in early July. The Trust indicated decisions on funding should go out in late September. Depending upon the decision, the Team will either continue with its work as outlined in the grant (see the summary of the project below) or seek funding from another source to finance the distribution of this important recruitment tool.
S. Keating, recorder
A Nursing Recruitment Initiative for California
Project Summary
Recent surveys of career counselors in California middle schools, high schools, community colleges, and universities demonstrate a lack of current knowledge about nursing as a career. This is dismaying in light of the existing and even more troublesome, future shortage of nurses in the state and the nation. Proposed statewide efforts to improve the image of nursing as a career option are underway though mass media measures. There are legislative efforts to increase support to nursing education programs and students, and a few managed care systems are providing direct financial aid to regional schools of nursing. However, there is no overall plan for reaching young people in middle schools, high schools, community colleges, and universities.
The proposed project distributes a nursing recruitment videotape, currently under production, to schools and health care agencies throughout the state and converts it into an easily distributed CD-ROM. Two thousand copies of the videotape will be mailed to high schools and major health care agencies. Fifteen copies of the CD-ROM will be distributed to each of the 104 schools of nursing in California. Five hundred additional copies will be available to other interested parties such as medical centers, universities, and health care agencies. Nurse recruiters, nurses, and nursing student association members will be trained in recruitment and will help to distribute the videotapes and CD-ROMs to career counselors in their feeder schools.
The focus of the recruitment effort is diversity, in its broadest sense, including ethnic and gender diversity, and the myriad of career pathways in nursing. This one-time effort, at a cost of $90,430.00 updates information on nursing for California students in middle schools, high schools and colleges; career counselors’ and health care workers. It enhances existing relationships and establishes new partnerships between nursing schools and their feeder schools. It is anticipated that these partnerships will continue into the future. The recruitment model has potential for replication in other states across the nation.