Brennan Lewis (Host 1): Welcome to Nurses Connect, a podcast from Children's Health dedicated to exploring critical issues and dynamic topics that shape the nursing profession today. I'm Brennan Lewis, Senior Vice President of Nursing Excellence, Innovation, and Patient Experience.

Christi Welter 2 (Host): And I'm Christi Welter, Program Director of Nursing Communications and Events. We are your co-hosts for Nurses Connect, and we're so happy you've joined us today.

Host 1: On today's episode of Nurses Connect, we're discussing nursing professional development initiatives. We have two guests joining us, Radiance Bean, Program Director of Clinical Development Pathways, and Chelsea Reynolds, Director of Nursing Informatics and Digital Care Delivery. Welcome to Nurses Connect, Radiance and Chelsea.

Chelsea Reynolds: Thanks for having us.

Radiance Bean: Yeah. Thank you. Very excited.

Host 2: All right. Well, just to get us started off, this question is for both of you. Why is it so important to encourage nurses to seek out opportunities to grow professionally?

Radiance Bean: I think it's important for us to encourage nurses to seek out professional development because our profession is lifelong learning and we want to encourage people to continue to challenge themselves and not become stagnant. It also leads to better patient outcomes as we continue to look for innovative ways to care for our patients, and we want to encourage that as well.

Chelsea Reynolds: What Radiance just said really is truthful. I think that it's really important to encourage nurses to seek out other opportunities to grow professionally, because we don't want to be stagnant. We want to keep learning. When you go into nursing, there's just this great opportunity to do a multitude of things and not stay in one position. And so, I think it's really important so you don't run into maybe being bored in your profession to help encourage our nursing staff to seek out other opportunities and keep growing and learning. And I think that, like Radiance said, gives the best patient care when we keep learning.

Host 1: You know, I've been at Children's Health for 24 years this year. And one of the things that I love about our organization is what we're able to do for our own professional growth and development. So, I certainly have a journey here, starting as a clinical nurse and now serving in an SBP role. So, I just would love to hear—I know, Radiance, you're newer to the organization. You've been here how long now?

Chelsea Reynolds: It'll be three years next month. Three years.

Host 1: So, we can't call you new anymore.

Chelsea Reynolds: I still call myself new.

Host 1: And Chelsea, you've been here for quite some time. How long have you been here?

Chelsea Reynolds: Almost 16 years this month.

Host 1: Wow. Yeah, 16 years. So, tell us a little bit about your professional growth and development journey here at Children's Health.

Chelsea Reynolds: So I think for me, I am still in the role I was hired in, but I have another opportunity to get certified, an additional certification in nursing executive leadership, which I now am able to provide that education to other nurse leaders.

By the time this airs, I will be enrolled in my DNP program. So, another opportunity for me to continue to grow and learn, and I appreciate the resources that Children's Health has provided to be able to do those things. Because as of yet, I have not had to come out of pocket for anything.

Host 2: That's amazing.

Chelsea Reynolds: Yeah. So, I'm not new. I sometimes hope I can say I'm new still, so...

Host 1: You're new and you're a director for nursing informatics.

Chelsea Reynolds: Correct. Very correct. So, I have been so—I think really blessed is the right word to use since I started. I started at Children's as a new graduate nurse. And I know part of it is me. I really like to grow and learn, but then part of that is Children's and their ability to support that growth.

I about every two to three years do something new, and Children's has always allowed that opportunity. I am not one that likes to sit stagnant, and I like to grow and learn and meet new people. And Children's has really just afforded that opportunity, not only for schooling. They supported me getting a master's degree and a doctorate degree. They've supported multiple certifications that I have been able to get in these 16 years. But then, they also have supported the networking opportunities and have allowed me to stay within the organization but go learn something new, and I'm really appreciative of that.

Host 2: That's awesome. So, kind of piggybacking off of your background, I'm curious about your role specifically, Radiance, right now. What do you do to provide growth opportunities for our nurses?

Radiance Bean: Oh, thanks. That's a great question. I really love the role I have now. I moved a couple years ago right when I started in this role. And when I described what I did for someone, the person responded and said, "So, you literally help make people's dreams come true." And I just love that.

So, what I do is I support people in clinical roles or non-clinical roles that are interested in going into clinical roles in getting to that space, whether it's clinical shadowing, which we also encourage for nurses interested in leadership positions to shadow nurse leaders or some of those beyond the bedside roles if they're interested in something different, which allows them to see things before they apply for the roles, and that helps support the retention and keeping them here so that they're provided those opportunities.

But I also look at it in a way that it supports retention because if they shadow and they actually don't like it, they know before they actually transition into the role. So, I take either of those as a win. I also support our PCTs that are wanting to become nurses. We have a student nurse tech program to support them in becoming better candidates when they apply for our nurse residency program.

And then, I also support our nurse leaders in their professional development. And my ultimate hope with their professional development is, as we support them, they will continue to support the nurses on their team and their professional development as well, and it'll just continue to roll down. But what we do for our nurse leaders is I provide our nurse executive review course to them so that they can get that leadership certification and really own that expertise.

This fall, we are also starting a nurse leader academy for our operational leaders to get the knowledge that they need to support their team members. This will be for directors and clinical managers to support them with the entire gamut of what's needed, both the nursing practice pieces and the nursing leadership pieces, the professional development pieces, the interrelational pieces as well, to give them all of that so that they feel like they are stronger leaders and can encourage their staff both clinically and professionally.

Host 2: How do you determine what kind of professional development initiatives need to be created for nurses?

Radiance Bean: Primarily through needs assessments, we want to make sure that we are giving the learners what they need. And those needs assessments can be a couple of different ways. It can be something where we're surveying the staff to identify what they need, but it can also be through gaps that as an organization we look at and notice and we want to provide additional support for that.

So, a few years ago, a learning needs assessment was conducted, and it was conducted through the AONL competency assessment. We were able to look at that to determine what types of interventions we wanted to do specifically for staff. And with that, we identified that the team leader and manager roles needed stronger support in communication techniques with their staff, especially around difficult conversations with team members and accountability. We identified that through the learning needs assessment from the AONL competencies for our managers and then with our team leaders through focus groups, so hearing from them directly. So, two different ways.

But you can also look at metrics across the board, retention, specifically with our nursing leadership, retention when we have new leaders, retention when we have leaders outside of the organization. All of those things can show us specifically what education and what support is needed so that we can help them grow as they're entering into those new leader roles.

And one of the data points I'm really excited about with our Nurse Leader Academy is we will specifically be looking at, with our new leaders, their competency as it relates to being new to Children's, new as a leader, or new as a leader to the specialty that they are in, and where the breaking point might be where people struggle the most between the three of those.

Because in theory, I could be new to Children's, a new leader, and new to that specialty, or I could be one or the other. And so, we want to see where that breaking point is so that maybe we can better support our managers and/or our directors in their hiring practices to make sure that we are hiring strong leaders that feel supported when they come in as well.

Host 1: Just to piggyback on that, we've really invested at Children's Health into our nurse leader development for all the many reasons that Radiance just described from learning needs assessment, as well as us conducting a research study on the wellbeing of our nurse leaders. And the results, particularly, quantitatively told us that our nurses are struggling with their wellbeing. And when we did the qualitative portion of the study, we learned a lot from our nurse leaders, and particularly around their need for nurse leader development. And while we have training for all leaders at Children's Health, we knew that there was an opportunity to really invest in our leadership development for them.

So, it's so fun to see all of this come to fruition and under Radiance's leadership is pretty incredible. All right, Chelsea, you just finished your Doctor of Nursing Practice, so congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. So, tell us a little bit about the work that you did on developing the Leader Mentor Program.

Chelsea Reynolds: So to really piggyback off of Radiance, what she said, and then what you just led with the nurse leader wellbeing study that we did. And then, just personally, my own experience being a nurse leader. So when I was tasked with coming up with a DNP project or a Doctor of Nursing project, I really wanted to do something that would have a lasting impact and something that would mean something to those that I have worked with previously, and that I'm surrounded by each day. And I also helped along with Brennan with the Nurse Leader Wellbeing Study. And I think reading through those qualitative interviews really struck a chord. A lot of what was said I resonated with deeply and had a lot of reflection in what a lot of our nurse leaders said out loud.

And so, I really wanted to make impact. And I think, on my own reflection of being a nurse leader, I don't think it's spoken out loud as much. I think it's getting there. But being a leader is hard, and being a leader can be isolating, especially the further you move up the ladder. It can feel like you are the only one that is experiencing this, and you don't always know who to talk to.

And so, in reflecting in my own nurse leader past or history, I look to, like, what helped me through some of those really hard times, and that was having a mentor. And a lot of our nurse leaders that resonated with them in their qualitative interviews as well is that we lack a formal mentorship program here at Children's Health for nurse leaders in particular.

And so, I dove deep into the research. So, I wanted to develop a program that would have a lasting impact here at Children's. And so, we came up, myself and Radiance Bean, and then another person, Martha Shaw, who oversees our mentorship programs for our new resident nurses, and our new nurses to Children's. And we designed it, so we did questionnaires for the mentees and mentors. We aligned them with their AONL competencies where the mentees potentially had opportunities for growth and where the mentors felt like that they were strong.

We wanted to make sure that we paired people with clinical managers, with directors, to make sure that they were aligned, and had some growth opportunity there. And so, we designed the program to last six months. It was really mentee-driven. So then what that means is that the mentees then, they set up the meetings, the monthly meetings with their mentors. We provided them sample meeting agendas. We provided them back their AONL competency assessments to remind themselves what they maybe needed to work on.

And then, we drafted a goal sheet for them. And so, during that first meeting with their mentor, they could draft goals, you know, up to three goals. If they had more, then they were more than welcome to do that. But they would develop these goals in conjunction with their mentor based on their AONL competencies and based where they wanted to be at the end of the six months.

During that time, because we were coming off of the tail of this nurse wellbeing study, I really wanted to look at nurse leader wellbeing during this time. We know that not only does the mentor program benefit mentees, it also benefits mentors. And so, we looked at their wellbeing over during the first month, third month, and sixth month as the program ended. And excited to say, although a smaller sample size, we saw a decrease in the wellbeing score, which correlates to a better wellbeing, improved wellbeing, even though that sounds a little backwards there.

Host 1: Lower, the better.

Host 2: Yeah, the lower the better. Yeah. Yes.

Chelsea Reynolds: The lower the score, the better. And then, we wanted to make sure that the mentoring program was effective and that mentoring relationship was effective, so we also used a mentor evaluation tool and had the mentees complete that. And overall, the relationships between the mentees and mentors were significant and they were effective, and the mentees felt like they had been supported and had learned something in that six-month program.

Host 1: So awesome. So, we've kind of talked a lot about the organization, our organization specifically, and how much it professionally grows and develops nurses, the importance of development, particularly we've focused a lot on, historically, all nurses and probably health systems on the clinical nurse development, making sure they have competencies signed off.

But what I would say is there was a large gap for us to align leader competencies, and that's something our organization has worked a lot on in developing the programs to support, and then mentoring. What would you tell or give advice to nurses that are listening to this podcast around their own professional growth and development?

Chelsea Reynolds: My advice would be to never stop seeking out opportunities. And when I was in another life, the responsible for nurse residency program, I used to always tell the residents that while nursing is a selfless profession, during your orientation or your onboarding, that is your time to be selfish and make sure that you get everything you need from it.

Ask the questions, ask for more support, ask for help, ask for further guidance. And so if you are new in a role, I would say make sure that you are doing that and advocating for yourself because you will not be able to fully immerse yourself in the role and care for your patients to the best of your ability or care for your staff to the best of your ability if you are not advocating for your own growth and development and making sure you have the tools and resources that you need to be successful.

Radiance Bean: I would say to just jump in feet first. There's never a great time to do it. You can always come up with a reason why maybe right now is not the time to be on a committee or maybe right now is not the time to go back to school or take a certification exam. But really, like Radiant said, like be a little selfish in that, you know, pour into yourself. Because if you pour into yourself and improve yourself, then you can pour into others.

And I think that has shown up many times in my career here. When I have taken the time to improve myself and grow professionally, it always comes back tenfold in those that I can help around me. So, just do it.

Host 1: That's awesome. Great advice. Is there anything that we haven't asked you that you would want to touch on today?

Chelsea Reynolds: I think the only other thing I would say is it is very rare. And while we are creating these programs to support nurse leaders in their role and as new nurse leaders, it is very rare for nurse leaders to get a structured orientation. So, I think it is important to remember to have grace with yourself as you're continuing to learn the role, because oftentimes you didn't have the orientation to give us that structure.

I always told my new leaders, "Give it a year before you feel comfortable." That really you're going to be uncomfortable, and that's okay. Ask questions. We will be there to support you. But it will take at least a full year for you to feel confident sending that email back or answering that person's question without second-guessing yourself.

Host 1: Love that. All right. Well, it's time to wrap up this episode of Nurses Connect. Thank you both for joining us today.

Chelsea Reynolds: Thank you.

Radiance Bean: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Host 1: If you want to know more about nursing at Children's Health, we encourage you to visit childrens.com/nursingannualreport. Here, you'll find information that summarizes a variety of our nursing initiatives. Thank you to our listeners for joining us today. We'll talk to you next time on Nurses Connect.