GROWTH: A Strategy for Nursing Student Retention.

BACKGROUND: Faculty focused on student success may look for opportunities to facilitate nursing student retention. Students commonly struggle with study skills, time management, and critical thinking in the nursing curriculum. This article presents the GROWTH (Growth, Readiness, Opportunity, Work, Time management, and Habits) form, an open-ended question form aimed at the identification of affective, environment, and psychosocial variables known to impede nursing student success. METHOD: Faculty used the GROWTH form when meeting with students in the beginning of the prelicensure program. RESULTS: Using the GROWTH form facilitates structured, focused faculty-student meetings and individualized action plans for students who are not achieving their desired level of academic performance. The GROWTH form also encourages students to take ownership of their own learning. CONCLUSION: Using the GROWTH form facilitates faculty-student meetings and encourages student self-reflection. Future research should investigate whether use of the GROWTH form has further implications for program progression and retention. [J Nurs Educ. 2019;58(3):173-177.].

Bridge to shared governance: developing leadership of frontline nurses.

Transforming health care systems to improve quality is the responsibility of nurse executives and frontline nurses alike, yet frontline nurses are often ill-prepared to share leadership and accountability needed for transformation. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the process used to build leadership capacity of frontline nurses engaged in resolving operational failures interrupting nursing care. The leadership development process served to bridge staff transition to shared governance. This institutional review board-approved qualitative research was designed to identify the effects of mentoring by the chief nursing officer and faculty partners on leadership development of frontline nurses working to find solutions to operational failures. Twelve nurses from 4 medical surgical units participated in a Frontline Innovations' nurse-led interdisciplinary group, which met over 18 months. Transcriptions of audiotaped meetings were analyzed for emerging process and outcome themes. The transcripts revealed a robust leadership development journey of frontline nurses engaged in process improvement. Themes that emerged from the mentoring process included engagement, collaboration, empowerment, confidence, and lifelong learning. The mentoring process provided frontline nurses the leadership foundation necessary to initiate shared governance.