Title: Nurses’ voices: Grassroots to global

Abstract:

The world’s nurses are deeply burned-out from the strains of frontline service to the worldwide COVID pandemic-while already enduring perpetual challenges from overwhelmed health care systems. But-even as nurses are appreciated and widely trusted for this service-their public voices are rarely heard. This lack of nursing’s public voice is in keeping with results of the Woodhull Study of Nursing and the Media: Healthcare’s Invisible Partner-published in 1998 by Sigma Theta Tau International [STTI} and revisited in 2018 with the same results-a significant lack of nurses’ voices-in STTI’s Journal of Nursing Scholarship. While COVID has increased widespread nursing burnout, recent research also indicates that ‘resilience’ reduces burnout and the effects of burnout. One major way to build resilience is to share our voices-thoughts and ideas-and be listened to with deep respect and appreciation. This presentation introduces the breadth and 20-year history of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH). It will share NIGH’s innovative global multi-media outreach-to prepare nurses, including students and retirees, to become empowered storytellers and engaged to share their voices-their stories of healing, resilience, and health advocacy-as thought-leaders across the global public space and to the listening ears of everyone. This outreach includes developing a substantive global training project aimed to be developed in all six Regions of the World Health Organization, collaborating with nurses, student nurses, nurse educators, retirees and related stakeholders and building teams of presenters and trainers to reach their own communities and networks, grassroots-to-global.

Audience Take Away Notes:

•  Review of the impact of the COVID pandemic on nurses worldwide
•  Discover the related value of bringing nurses’ voices to public community, national, regional, and global arenas
•  Brief introduction to the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH), its 20-year history and global outreach
•  Introduction to NIGH’s innovative ‘Nurses’ Voices Grassroots-to-Global Campaign’
•  Learn how to participate in this Campaign

Biography:

Deva-Marie Beck, PhD, RN, DTM is a Canadian American nurse and award-winning Florence Nightingale scholar who has been working-for three decades-on citizen advocacy for achieving global health. She has served, since 2006, as a volunteer International Co-Director of the NGO called Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) — traveling to 25 countries, leading NIGH’s work on UN Briefings, workshops, group discussions, online updates, webinars, feature articles, photojournalism, video, keynote presentations across the world and to achieve the United Nations Economic & Social Council (UN ECOSOC) ‘Special Consultative Status.’ She has recently achieved the highest-level award from Toastmasters International — Distinguished Toast Master ‘DTM’.