The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has approved $211,000 in funding for the second year of a nursing education, practice and retention initiative called Leading Nurses. Kendal Outreach is collaborating with Widener University (based in Chester, Pa.) on the three-year $800,000 grant program, which provides leadership training to 60 directors of nursing and registered nurse leaders working in Delaware Valley nursing homes.

The goal of Leading Nurses is to improve the care of approximately 3,750 nursing home residents. Chronic turnover and performance problems in the long-term care field have prompted calls for more effective and practical ways of developing, managing and retaining nurse leaders. This follows a growing acknowledgement that the quality of long-term care is largely dependent on the staffing levels, competence and performance of nursing staff.

Leading Nurses provides daylong training sessions each month during the first year of the program. During the next two years, the program will help the nurses to implement specific protocols to improve resident care outcomes.

“During the second year, the students will be mentored at their own sites, and Leading Nurses faculty will assist them in using the skills they are learning during the class sessions,” says Beryl Goldman, Project Director for Leading Nurses and Director for Kendal Outreach. “The first nine sessions have been devoted to leadership skill development, the last three will focus on best practice clinical protocols.”