New top nurses training program to improve health

The program aims to create a cadre of trained facilitators to support the delivery of GNLI 2020 and future ICN programmes. PHOTO: ImageCollab

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) held its first Global Nursing Leadership Institute (GNLI) Facilitators’ Training Programme from 18 to 21 August. Responding to the current situation of COVID-19 around the world and the need for a virtual alternative to ICN’s flagship leadership program for nurses, it aims to create a cadre of trained facilitators to support the delivery of GNLI 2020 and future ICN programmes.

Annette Kennedy, president at ICN, says the GNLI Facilitators Training Programme is a strategic leadership programme which prepares top nurses from around the world to drive policy that improves the health of people, health care and the nursing profession. She says it is made up of three modules over six months including a residential workshop held in Switzerland and has a regional facilitator helping ensure GNLI 2020 scholars around the world experience outstanding learning.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GNLI 2020 will hold a virtual program in place of the residential week for the first time from 18 to 25 September. The need to support, encourage and mentor nursing leaders for the future is one of the recommendations of the State of the World’s Nursing Report published earlier this year by the World Health Organization,” says the president.

According to Kennedy, GNLI has been developing nursing leaders for over 10 years. She says by taking GNLI online this year as a virtual offering, this programme will extend the reach of GNLI and enable nurses to take their rightful place in developing healthcare policy in the post-COVID future.

The State of the World’s Nursing Report contains strategic directions for the profession including promoting and supporting nursing leadership in health systems around the world. The report also points out the most effective nurse leaders have robust supportive development programmes to help them on their journey.

Howard Catton, chief executive officer at ICN, says GNLI is a huge piece of the jigsaw in producing future nursing leaders of the world, but they have the ambition to do even more and that is where facilitators fit in. He says COVID-19 has changed the world and it creates the opportunity for everyone to design and build the future they want.

“Facilitators have an important role to play in connecting and bringing together GNLI alumni within their regions and supporting regional training in the future. ICN is working closely with WHO and leading the work to take the discussions on the State of the World’s Nursing, the response to COVID and the post-COVID environment, out to the nurses on the ground. The GNLI Facilitators Training Programme plays a major part in this work,” he says.

The programme will be led professionally by two top nurse leaders, Professor Jane Salvage and Dr Diana Mason who are programme co-directors of GNLI 2020 and whose leadership of the institute has been highly evaluated by previous participants. Professor Salvage from the United Kingdom is well known globally as a nursing and health policy activist, leader, trainer and author who has run leadership programmes and workshops in many countries.

“Dr Mason from the United States is a leader in nursing and healthcare, journalist, scholar, and educator and past president of the American Academy of Nursing. Both are award-winning editors of their countries' leading nursing journals, Nursing Times and the American Journal of Nursing,” says Catton.