| Project Leaders: |
Dolores E. Roybal, Executive Director, CAHF
droybal@conalma.org, 505.438.0776
Kathy Lopez-Bushnell, Project Consultant/Principle Investigator
KLopezBushnell@salud.unm.edu, 505.272.1959
Jessica Sanchez, Project Director, Project DIVERSITY
jsanchez@conalma.org |
Con Alma Health Foundation, New Mexico’s largest health foundation, was selected as one of 11 foundations nationwide to receive funding in the second year of Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future (PIN), a national initiative to develop and test solutions to America’s nursing shortage. Led by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation, the program encourages local foundations to act as catalysts in developing grassroots strategies to establish a stable, adequate nursing workforce. Con Alma was awarded a two-year grant of $250,000, which will be matched with another $125,000 - $105,000 from Con Alma and $20,000 from the New Mexico Community Foundation (NMCF) - for a total project budget of $375,000.
Con Alma made the decision to commit its resources to nursing issues as a result of one of the key findings in our report, Closing the Health Disparity Gap in New Mexico: A Roadmap for Grantmaking.” The study revealed that New Mexico has the most significant shortage of health professionals in the nation. Furthermore, over 41% of New Mexico’s RNs and 43% of LPNs are over the age 50, which is older than the national average of 46.2 years. This will result in the need for an additional 4,520 RNs and 680 LPNs by 2012 in New Mexico.
PURPOSE: The purpose of Project DIVERSITY is to increase the number of ethnically diverse nurses in New Mexico through a comprehensive recruitment, nurse-student mentoring, and tutoring (math, science, English literacy) initiative targeting youth. The collaboration will also conduct a conference on pipeline health career strategies that will improve the recruitment, support and retention of ethnic minority students in nursing careers.
PROGRAM: The program involves identifying minority students interested in nursing and providing FREE academic tutoring (math, science, English) and mentoring with a nurse. This program will help establish the pipeline for minority students to enter nursing school and the nursing workforce in New Mexico. |
Our goal is to enroll 30 ethnically diverse students per year to enter Project DIVERSITY over the course of the next two years. Additionally, we will develop our pipeline of potential ethnically diverse students, holding outreach meetings throughout the state of New Mexico and providing nurse mentors. An advisory committee will oversee the project.
This proposed project addresses the New Mexico nursing issues by providing a strategy to measure the outcomes of a academic tutoring program that will support the academic achievement of students interested in nursing, a mentoring program that will tract students in nursing and the workforce and identify interventions that are successful with this issue through a conference. The existing Health Careers Pipeline Consortium will act as an advisory group and the members will network with statewide nursing leaders and community members to increase the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of nursing work force. This will also bolster the nursing educational infrastructure by developing and recruiting qualified ethnically diverse nurse educators and create value to the statewide nursing community via communication, collaboration, and implementation of a creative and effective educational and marketing nursing program that does not now exist. |
