NURS 6730 Week 1 Introduction to Public Health Nursing Leadership

NURS 6730 Week 1 Introduction to Public Health Nursing Leadership Essay Assignment

Public health nurses come from a variety of diverse educational backgrounds and have a wealth of professional as well as personal experiences. These experiences provide the foundation for a public health nurse’s development as a leader.

However, becoming an effective leader is a lifelong journey that requires dedication and leveraging of opportunities for ongoing professional development. Leadership principles and practices must be learned and then applied to the context of everyday life. Leaders who dedicate themselves to the profession of public health nursing (PHN) will be guided by a philosophy of social justice, the desire to make the public’s health a priority, and a recognition of the need to collaborate across professions, communities, states, and nations to make their dream a reality.

This week, you will reflect on your own leadership experiences and begin to explore the skills and strategies that are important for public health nurses in leadership roles. This knowledge will guide you to identify the goals and objectives for your own professional and personal leadership journey. This week, you are also introduced to your practicum requirements.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Assess past leadership experiences (D)
Analyze leadership strategies (D)
Identify leadership skills for public health nurses in leadership roles (D)
Create measurable professional development objectives (P)
Create detailed time logs* (P)
Analyze Practicum Experiences in the context of public health nursing* (P)
*The Assignments related to these Learning Objectives are introduced this week and submitted in Week 3.

Discussion: Leadership Lessons

Lydia Desai, MSN, RN has been leading the WellBaby initiative, an infant mortality reduction program, for over ten years. To say she is under pressure is an understatement. Fundraising and budget management, public communication, and maintaining strong relationships with a wide range of community stakeholders are among her major areas of responsibility. In addition, she is responsible for leading a team of 10 public health professionals with varied backgrounds and roles that fuel the success of the program. Dr. Desai prides herself on transparency and honesty when managing her staff. She has recently learned that one of her team members deliberately kept something from her that had a negative impact on an important stakeholder relationship. A colleague encouraged her to have a private conversation with the employee to gain a better understanding of what happened from her perspective. Dr. Desai quickly responded, “It is clear I can no longer trust her, she will have to come to me if she wants to redeem herself. For now, I will just assign her to another area of the project.”

For this Discussion, you will reflect on your own experiences under someone’s leadership and identify specific skills you associate with different styles of leadership.

To prepare:

Review this week’s Resources.
Reflect on the ANA reading on Leadership Competencies.
Reflect on past and current leadership styles you have been exposed to in various roles (professional, volunteer, etc.).

By Day 3

Post a description of two past experiences you have had working under someone’s leadership—one experience you would characterize as positive, and one experience you would characterize as negative. Identify the leadership skills that leader possessed or the leadership skills that leader was missing for each experience.

What effective leadership strategies were used to create a positive experience?
What leadership strategies were used that resulted in a negative experience? Explain.
How have these and other experiences with different forms of leadership informed the kind of leader you aspire to become?

Support your post with scholarly resources.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues by responding to the following prompt:

Identify at least two leadership skills from your colleagues’ experiences (either positive or negative) that highlight an important aspect of leadership for public health nurse leaders. Explain.

Practicum Assignment: Practicum Professional Experience Plan (PPEP)

As reflected in this week’s Discussion, leadership skills and competencies are an essential part of professional development.

For this Assignment, you will develop a Practicum Professional Experience Plan (PPEP) to outline how your involvement in the practicum will contribute to your growth as a public health nursing professional and allow you to hone your PHN knowledge and skills. The PPEP consists of two or three objectives related to professional development that you will address during your Practicum Experience.

Note: In the practicum manual, these are referred to as your individualized learning objectives.

To prepare:

Review the ANA Public Health Nursing Scope & Standards of Practice document with a focus on Standard 12: Leadership.
Identify leadership competencies that you feel you already possess, and consider those at which you feel you can gain or strengthen in this course through practice-level experience and/or continued professional growth. How can your experiences in the practicum help you achieve these objectives?
Discuss your professional objectives and your proposed practicum professional development objectives with your Preceptor to ascertain if the necessary resources are available at your practicum site.
Download and save the Practicum Professional Experience Plan Form provided in this week’s Resources.

To complete your Practicum Professional Experience Plan:

Record the required information in each area of the Professional Practicum Experience Plan, including two or three objectives you will use to facilitate your professional development during the practicum.

By Day 7

Submit the Practicum Professional Experience Plan Form for Faculty review and approval.

When your Instructor has approved your plan, forward the signed PPEP to your Preceptor and retain a copy for your records.

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