The Experience of Physical Activity in Adolescents With Cerebral Palsy.

For adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP), participating in physical activity (PA) can be difficult due to functional limitations that not only affect an adolescent's ability or willingness to participate in PA but also create particular social concerns. Research in the area of PA and adolescents with CP is limited. This research study utilized hermeneutic phenomenology to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the lived experiences of 14 adolescents with CP who participated in PA. The interpretations of each participant offered common understandings and themes to be identified and warranted as valid by the interpretive team. Common understandings identified were (a) developmental tasks of typical adolescents, (b) place of friends, (c) purpose of PA, (d) importance of support, and (e) wanting to be like the primary researcher. Most of the 14 participants had similar experiences within the identified common understandings and themes. Physical activity, in part, helps adolescents find out about themselves and their place within their community. The experiences of adolescents with CP and PA show that participation in PA is a way to connect with friends, meet new people, and gain a feeling of freedom from their disability. We offer healthcare providers a starting point to talk about PA and to help adolescents with CP find activities within their community.

Becoming a Transformative Nurse Educator: Finding Safety and Authenticity.

The study purpose was to evaluate and strengthen this program's nursing education curriculum to better prepare and develop future nurse faculty. As the dire nursing faculty shortage increases, the transition of expert nurse clinician to novice educator is receiving more attention. In order to prepare, recruit, and retain the nursing faculty needed to meet the growing nurse shortage, understanding what nurse educators need in order to be successful is essential. Fourteen participants from four focus groups of nurse educators shared stories about their role transition. Two administrators were interviewed to determine what they identified as crucial in hiring new nurse educators. Interpretive analysis focused on identification of themes and possible paradigm cases. Themes that emerged included: a) culture of academia surprises, b) exciting "Aha!" moments, and c) Safety with a capital "S". These findings were used to strategically revise the entire nurse educator curriculum.

Innovative Practice in Advancement of Academic Nurse Educator Careers: Developing Scholarship From Program Grants.

We describe an innovative practice in advancing careers of academic nurse educators: demonstrating scholarly productivity from program grants. Scholarly productivity is often narrowly defined, especially in research-intensive institutions. The expectation may be a career trajectory based on the traditional scholarship of discovery. However, nurse educators, especially at the associate and full professor ranks, are often involved in leadership activities that include writing and managing program grants. We encourage the academy to value and support the development of program grants that include significant scholarly components, and we offer exemplars of associate and full professor scholarship derived from these projects.

Interactive CO-learning for Research Engagement and Education (I-COREE) Curriculum to Build Capacity Between Community Partners and Academic Researchers.

The voice of diverse communities continues to be minimal in academic research. Few models exist for education and training of new research topics and terminology and building partnership capacity in community-engaged research. Little is known about integrative education and training when building participatory research partnerships for sustainability and developing trust and rapport. Community partners at an Asian community-based health and social services center in a large metropolitan area wanted to explore the cultural context of a health-assistive smart home that monitors and auto-alerts with changes in health. With historical and recent rising trends in culturally insensitive research in several diverse communities, the concept of technology-enabled monitoring in the privacy of one's home brings uncertainty. Academic nurse researchers and community partners co-created a culturally safe integrative education and training curriculum, the Interactive CO-learning for Research Engagement and Education (I-COREE). The purpose was to design, implement, and evaluate the curriculum to respond to the community partners' needs to create a culturally safe space through an integrative education and training to facilitate building partnership capacity for research engagement including developing trust and rapport and addressing uncertainties in health-assistive technologies. Popular education tenets informed the curriculum. Twelve academic and community partners participated, four were team teachers who co-led the session. Implementation of the experiential, multimodal co-learning activities were conducted within ahalf-day. The curriculum evaluation indicated that it helped bridge critical conversations about partners' fears of the unknown, approach culturally sensitive topics safely, and trust and rapport. Key elements may be translatable to other partnerships.

Experiences of RNs Who Voluntarily Withdraw From Their RN-to-BSN Program.

BACKGROUND: The number of RN-to-baccalaureate nursing (BSN) programs is increasing; however, nurses continue to voluntarily withdraw at higher rates than expected. METHOD: A Heideggerian hermeneutic approach was used to interpret the meaning of the experience of RNs, who voluntarily withdraw from their baccalaureate nursing programs. The research aims were to generate a comprehensive understanding of (a) the experiences of RN-to-BSN noncompleters, (b) the meaning noncompleters ascribe to the experience of dropping out, and (c) the interplay between factors that influence dropout decisions. RESULTS: Two overarching patterns of understanding emerged: Withdrawing as Revisiting Failure, and Withdrawing as Impasse: On One Side of the Divide. The factors that influence whether an RN finishes a baccalaureate nursing program are many, but the effect on dignity and well-being are immeasurable. CONCLUSION: Voluntary withdrawal from an RN-to-BSN program leaves nurses professionally place-bound, affecting not only the individual nurse but also the profession. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(5):260-265.].

Positioning a 5-State Nursing Workforce to Flourish by Advancing Baccalaureate Nursing Education.

This article summarizes experience and outcomes for a large, faith-based health system on a journey to ensure that its nearly 29 000-person nurse workforce has the foundational academic preparation to deliver superior, compassionate, and future-focused nursing care. The health system's bachelor of science in nursing completion strategy is summarized, including (a) programmatic structure, (b) curriculum themes, (c) participant experience, and (d) outcomes. Executive leadership's commitment and engagement are highlighted.

A culture of mutual support: discovering why new nurses stay in nursing.

New nurse retention and satisfaction has been a recurring topic of research and concern for nursing administrators and educators. As the nursing shortage continues to grow, the retention of new nurses becomes even more important. Most research has focused on why new nurses leave nursing. This article describes the experiences of six new nurses who chose to stay in their first nursing position for 2 years. The qualitative results suggest that even though they felt underprepared, the nurses persevered and remained resilient because of a culture of mutual support. The study participants suggested that individuals contemplating nursing as a career need to "enter with their eyes open," stay strong and "persevere," and foster a "culture of mutual support."

Teaching teachers to teach with technology.

As the local and national shortage of nursing faculty grew, the Washington State University College of Nursing revised and expanded their nursing education courses in a technologically intense pilot program. Reflections on all phases of the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the first course in this program are described as lessons learned with implications for future nursing education and research endeavors.