Public Health Nursing Summit: Connecting Illinois' Population-focused Nursing Workforce

In the past few decades, Illinois has lacked a strong, unified voice for public health nursing. This lack has contributed to feelings of limited visibility and problems with recruitment and retention of staff. Today one step at a time, we are working towards finding that voice. This paper describes the development of and accomplishments associated with the Illinois Public Health Nursing Summit. Borne from a joint brainstorming session that included state public health association nursing section members and a funded collaboration of leaders in practice and education, this group's planning committee includes nurses from local health departments, schools, corrections, occupational health, parishes, and academia, and represents a collaborative in every sense of the word: sharing of power, resources, and knowledge while promoting a camaraderie of respect and recognition of the distinct voice that each sub-specialty brings to the public health nurse profession. The Summit's overall accomplishment is that it helped Public Health Nurses to recognize PHN work in diverse backgrounds within their communities in order to partner/collaborate at the local level. Other accomplishments to date include successfully planning (entirely through conference calling) the first summit, exceeding the projected attendance goal by threefold (N = 160), drawing attendees from diverse work backgrounds and state geographic areas, obtaining sponsorship from several state organizations, and identifying priority practice areas on which attendees wish more research evidence brought to bear. Five evidence-based practice initiatives consisting of PHN summit attendees and others have begun around these topics. The Summit serves to help unify us through a common language and purpose, while providing guidance for practice interventions and developing preceptors knowledgeable in both the content and process of EB PHN practice.