About the Grant

Through generous funding from the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, AACN has developed this tool kit to help support sustainable improvements in nurse well-being through curricular innovation and competency-based learning activities.  Further, the tool kit provides resources addressing core competencies of the AACN Essentials related to fostering personal health, resilience, and well-being, lifelong learning, and leadership development.

Advisory Group

The advisory group, comprised of experts in wellness, resilience, and leadership from academia and practice, was asked to: 

• Define how best to prepare nurse leaders with strong skills in the areas of resilience, self-care, and well-being.  
• Recommend learning resources, tools, and strategies for building leadership competencies essential to fostering resilience, wellness, and self-care in self and others; and,  
• Design innovative clinical learning experiences where students can practice leadership skills and identify learning assessment measures.  

		Adejoke Bolanle Ayoola, PhD Dean, School of Health Professor of Nursing, Calvin University			Alice Teall, DNP The Ohio State University Associate Clinical Professor
		Sherry S. Chesak, PhD Mayo Clinic, Nurse Scientist Professor, University of Minnesota			Cheryl Woods Giscombe, PhD The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Associate Dean, PhD Division & Program
		Kate Gawlik, DNP The Ohio State University Director of Undergraduate Health and Wellness Academic Programming			Joan Stanley, PhD, Staff Liaison Chief Academic Officer jstanley@aacnnursing.org
		Teri Pipe, PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison Richard E. Sinaiko Professor in Health Care Leadership			Cassandra Godzik, PhD, Staff Liaison Director of Nursing Education Initiatives cgodzik@aacnnursing.org
		Deborah Stamps, EdD Founder and CEO of Deborah Stamps Consulting, LLC			Allison Jacobs, Staff Liaison Associate Director of Special Projects ajacobs@aacnnursing.org
					Bridget Bingle, Staff Liaison Nursing Education Coordinator bbingle@aacnnursing.org

Contributions to the advisory group’s work were also made by Michael Ackerman, DNS, Professor of Clinical Nursing, Director of Master of Healthcare Innovation Program, The Ohio State University; Janie Heath, PhD, former Dean and emerita Professor of Nursing, University of Kentucky; and Allison P. Squires, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Florence S. Downs PhD Program in Nursing Research and Theory Development, New York University.

Developing the Tool Kit

Working in pairs, the Advisory Work Group developed and identified resources in four areas:  Well-Being, Resilience, Self-Care, and Leadership. The teams:

• Identified the competencies and sub-competencies in the Essentials related to the four concepts. While these competencies span almost all domains, the majority are aligned with the competencies in Domain 10, Personal, Professional, and Leadership Development.
• Curated resources (existing and new) that will help faculty to integrate these concepts into their nursing programs.
• Emphasized entry-level sub-competencies that appear to be most closely aligned with the four concepts.
• Developed recommendations on how faculty might implement these resources into didactic and clinical learning experiences. 

Pilot School Selection

In Fall 2022, AACN issued a call for pilot schools to all AACN member schools to identify programs interested in implementing and evaluating the impact of the grant’s newly identified learning and assessment strategies. AACN announced that it was seeking 10 schools with entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs to participate in this pilot with $10,000 in funding available to each school to assist with implementation efforts. Expectations were that each school would implement and evaluate learning strategies and clinical experiences developed through this project in their curriculum. AACN received a strong response to this call with 122 applications received from interested schools. Using a rubric developed by AACN and a blind review process, the advisory group selected ten schools to serve as pilot sites. Selection criteria included diversity of faculty, student body, school size, type of school, geographical region, and established practice partnerships. 

Pilot Schools

Adelphi University

California State University Chico

Fayetteville State University

Georgia State University

Rutgers University

Mount Carmel College

Nevada State University

Samuel Merritt University

University of Minnesota

University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio