Format for Printing     Student Name: Christina Allegretti Grant Advisor: Michele Acker Student Status: Masters Student Quarter: Spring 2003 PART I. Leadership Activity: I have been a member of the Society of Pediatric Nurses(SPN) task force. This is a nation wide group of nurse leaders that are collaborating to design a program to recruit current nurses into pediatrics but to also recruit students into nursing. The task force consists of about ten nurses at different professional levels that meet monthly via conference call. I contribute to the group as a staff nurse but also as a graduate student and provide input that helps to develop a script for recruitment. The script has been finalized and it is sent to each chapter of the Society of Pediatric Nurses. At the chapter level the leaders are to use the script at job fairs, and other recruitment activities. This is the initiation of SPN's long term program for recruitment and we have used the Johsnon & Johnson nurse recruitment program as a model. Infrastructure Building Program Planning Outcome: Contributing to this task force has certainly strengthened my skills as a leader. Being in the staff nurse/student role on this task force has taught me that my input is valuable but it was intimidating at first to work with nurses who were much more accomplished than me in their career. Other members included, nurse practitioners, nurse specialists, nurse scientists, and nursing faculty. This group has helped me develop teamwork skills and taught me how to appropriately serve on a nation wide program planning committee. This was an experience unlike any I have ever had before and I plan on remaining on the task force for many years. The group has taught me the invaluable elements of teamwork that I will build on for my entire career. Teamwork is present in all health care settings now with the emphasis on multidisciplinary care. PART II. Cultural Competence Cultural Acknoledgement and Respect Additional Activity: Outcome: Our task force had a large target population for our recruitment program. We wanted to target nurses that were already in practice and recruit them into pediatric nursing. However, our largest target population were high school students. Our goal was to recruit them into pediatric nursing or nursig in general. While developing a script we spent many meetings discussing how the script would have to be generic enough to fit into different high schools. We discussed the many differences in high schools across the country. We had to acknowledge and respect the differences of private vs public schools, urban vs suburban vs rural schools and gender specific schools. In many ways we had to recognize that the schools we were targeting were all different and represented many different cultures. Participating in these discussions strenthened my awareness in cultural competence. It was easy to generalize high school students but in fact we had to sit down and formulate a script that was culturally sensitive and appropriate to use in schools nationwide. Faculty Comments: Christina, What a great opportunity for you! This is wonderful networking with other nurses with similar interests as your's. I also think that your planning for how to present to high school students will be helpful when you see adolescents in your future practice. Working with teens can sometimes be like working with different cultures -- it is an art to be able to reach them, especially with health preventive info. Great job! Michele