Eleanor Kibrick, Director

CREATING A CULTURE OF CARING

Today, our world is much in need of healing. We believe nurses can make a significant contribution to acting locally to make health a top priority in human affairs. With NIGH, we are activating and mobilizing a global network of nurses who are committed to this goal. We are seeking to build, with those of you who wish to join us, a leadership family of NIGH Communities around the world.

Our proposed strategy is to co-convene, with you and your nursing network colleagues in your region,  Care for the Caregivers™ offerings (see below) that nurture nurses themselves and empower the nursing community to be advocates for health, locally and globally.

Benefits:

These offerings would be beneficial to you and your networks in the following ways:

* inspire nurses and others to "act locally and think globally" toward nursing advocacy and leadership for individual, community and global health

* create visibility for your local and regional organizations, attracting new members

* develop new ways to bring funds to your organization, by you co-sponsoring these events and sharing in the net proceeds

* strengthen the community of nursing in your area

* be in support of nursing concerns, including burnout and low morale

* foster nursing recruitment and retention strategy in your region

* widen the range of holistic Continuing Education offerings available in your area

* network with regional service organizations working on health projects

Offerings:

The essence of the Care for the Caregivers™ workshops is to learn to be in alignment - body, mind, emotions, spirit - between what you think, the words you use, and how you hold this energy in your body.....the results of experiencing these workshops is to be aware and responsible for how you live--what you actually transmit, at all these levels, to yourself, to patients, and to friends and family, to your community and world. 

"The Power of Words: Experience How Language and Thought Patterns Profoundly Affect Health and Well-Being"

This experiential workshop is designed to facilitate nurses and other health care professionals to recognize and transform negative internal dialogue and unconscious belief systems.  These patterns may be sabotaging your efforts to be mentally, physically and emotionally healthy and in balance. Through muscle-testing and a variety of other activities, working individually, in dyads and as a group, you will learn to distinguish what drains your energy and what restores and maintains it. Opportunities will be also be available for individual facilitation and group sharing.

“Communicating in Our Global Village: Cross-Cultural Expressions for Nursing Practice”

Now more than ever, our global village needs culturally competent and holistically focused nurses and nursing leaders. This one-day experiential workshop strengthens and celebrates communications skills, including the relationships between beliefs and language patterns and the expression and embodiment of cultural sensitivity.

"The Language of Leadership: We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For"

This one day experiential workshop gives nurses and other health care professionals the practical tools to access and express the leader within, and the foundation upon which to step forward and claim it.  It focuses on the profound connections between words, thoughts and belief systems and the expression and embodiment of leadership.  An emphasis is placed on identifying nurses' limiting beliefs around leadership issues and obstacles nurses encounter in assuming leadership roles.  Tools are given allowing participants to identify and release old habitual patterns and learn new and effective ways of expressing their individual leadership capacities. As the Hopi Elders have noted, the world is in great need and "we are the ones we have been waiting for."

"Relational and Communication Skills"

Good relational and communication skills can greatly benefit nurses in caring for self, colleagues and patients.  Useful methods offered in this workshop include learning how to give feedback in ways that are more likely to be heard, taken in and acted upon, and receiving feedback gracefully, using it for personal learning.  Other tools include identifying and testing assumptions, experiencing the posture of excellence and reframing one’s personal history. 

"Healing Relationships with Nature"

Human health is intimately connected to the health of the environment. This workshop addresses how a culture's cosmic or origin story influences how people relate to nature and the impact of this relationship on health. Participants explore ways to re-connect with nature in conscious ways, to open to the experience of nature's healing and nurturing, and to live in a sustainable way that promotes the life and healing of the Earth.

"Spiritual Caregiving for Self and Others"

What is true of one's own spiritual journeys applies to the spiritual paths of one's patients as well. This experiential workshop addresses the need for nurses to grow in the practice of caring for and nurturing themselves as spiritual beings and offers processes for more consciously incorporating spiritual care into both personal and professional life.

"Buddhist Perspectives in Caring for Self, Community and the World"

Whether one is inspired by His Holiness the Dalai Lama's comment that 'my religion is kindness' or faced with increasing number of Asian or Buddhist patients in our care, understanding a Buddhist perspective can be a valuable asset.  In this experiential workshop, participants will learn the practice of 'tonglen' - a meditative practice of receiving and giving. Participants will apply this practice to caring for self, followed by practicing caring for each other, truly sowing the seeds for a "culture of caring".  Caring for the natural world and its inhabitants will follow - widening our hearts to include global concerns.  Interactive conversations will include the concepts of karma (cause and effect), bodhicitta (compassion) and the Four Noble Truths.

Our Care For the Caregivers™  workshops have been enthusiastically received in Atlanta, in 2004, at a pre-conference workshop for the annual conference of the American  Association of Rehabilitation Nurses; in Montreal in 2004 at the annual conference of the International Association for Human Caring; in Scottsdale, in 2003 and 2004, as pre-conference workshops at two annual conferences of the American Holistic Nurses' Association; and in Memphis, in 2003, at the annual Nursing Leadership Conference of the Methodist Le Bonheur Health Care System, where 200 nursing leaders, administrators and award-winning clinicians attended.

In 2005, related presentations are slated for a day-long workshop at the annual conference of the American Holistic Nurses Association in Philadelphia, two day-long Womens’ Health Workshops in Washington, DC, and a Holistic Nurses Workshop on Long Island.

Launching the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health" (NIGH)

This workshop was developed in consultation with key American and International Nursing Leaders and Nightingale Scholars at the Nightingale 2010 Consultation convened in Washington, DC in May, 2004.

This 2-hour session, including a power point presentation, provides participants with the opportunity to learn more about this exciting project. NIGH is being developed to:

*  build a grassroots movement among nurses, health care workers, educators and other global citizens-from every country and community-who will work together to inform, educate and mobilize public opinion throughout the world toward the adoption of health as the universal priority of the United Nations and its Member States

* use communications, media and promotional tools to advocate for these ends

* identify, share and actively encourage approaches that work to create a healthy world

* contribute positive solutions to the worldwide nursing shortage 

This session can be convened in various venues such as hospitals, campus or community centers and/or with nurse educators and student nurses at one or more of your area universities.

Related Public Forums Networking NIGH:

The above NIGH briefing session could also be offered to the general public to network about nursing leadership and local advocacy for global health. Suggested co-sponsors might include regional service organizations such as Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions and local media people from cable television and local newspapers.

Here are a few of the enthusiastic comments we've received from participants:

Moments are forever.  I shall never forget this one.

  You pushed my boundaries.  Thank You!

     This was the most unique class. Very helpful information.  I enjoyed it!

Customizing and Co-sponsoring:

We are willing to work with you to customize these offerings based on your needs and the needs in your area. Continuing Education credits can be made available for all of these offerings.

These events can be co-sponsored by several organizations, such as AHNA Networks, Sigma Theta Tau International Chapters and local chapters of the National Student Nurses Association, and health agencies in your community.

Faculty:

Eleanor Kibrick, MSc, is Program Director of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health. She developed and taught physiology courses for undergraduate and post-graduate nurses for many years. For the past 10 years, she has designed and led workshops for health professionals, educators and others, teaching them to apply "conscious language and thought" techniques in their personal and professional lives, seeding the creation of a "language and culture of caring." She has been a featured presenter to national CAM leaders at the 1st Annual Science of Whole Person Health Conference in Washington, DC, at the recent 2004 national conference of the American Association of Rehabilitation Nurses in Atlanta, at the 23rd and 24th annual American Holistic Nurses' Association conferences in Scottsdale and at the 2003 annual senior staff retreat at Methodist LeBonheur HealthCare in Memphis.

Deva-Marie Beck, PhD, RN has networked for holistic nursing and health promotion issues in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. By profession, she is a health educator and consultant, author, nursing clinician, and Nightingale scholar. By commitment, she is a world ambassador for human health and well-being. She is co-author of "Florence Nightingale Today: Healing, Leadership, Global Action, (American Nurses Association, 2004) and was honored to be one of the presenters at the Florence Nightingale Commemorative, convened at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC in August, 2001 and May, 2004. Deva is the International Director of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, initially based in Ottawa, Canada and Washington, D.C.

Margaret A. (Peggy) Burkhardt, PhD, RN, is Director of Healing Matters, Beckley West Virginia, education director at the Rivers & Bridges Consortium of the West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships, and Family Nurse Practitioner at Gulf Family Practice, Sophia, West Virginia. A pioneer in the field of research on spirituality in nursing, Peggy has published numerous articles focused on spirituality and health, ethical issues, and holistic care, and has co-authored two books: "Ethics & Issues in Contemporary Nursing" and "Spirituality- Living Our Connectedness." Peggy has received the 1999 West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships Outstanding Field Faculty Partner Award, was named West Virginia University School of Nursing Outstanding Graduate Faculty - 1999/2000, and named the American Holistic Nurses' Association 1999 Holistic Nurse of the Year. Through her teaching, research, and clinical practice she explores and promotes integration of spirituality, balanced relationship with earth, and other complementary modalities into health care.

Barbara Greig, Ph.D. founded and for three years was CEO of Imagine Washington, Inc., a not for profit corporation with the mission of bringing together community leaders and youth to create a positive future for Washington DC.  She has over 20 years experience in consulting to organizations in the US and Canada, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.  She speaks French and Spanish. She has consulted to many not-for-profit organizations with missions ranging from child survival (in developing countries) to creating strong communities through shared leadership across race, class and cultural lines.  She teaches team dynamics and team building with the American University/NTL Masters Program in Organization Development.  She is co-editor of Reading Book for Human Relations Training (NTL Institute 1999).  She is a former member of the Board of Directors of NTL Institute, and former chair of the Board of Directors of Imagine Washington, Inc. 

Noreen Teoh, BS (Pharm), MPH is by profession, a global health consultant. She has worked as a hospital pharmacist for ten years, including serving as the Director of Pharmacy at Tulane University Medical Center. Other highlights of her professional career include the promotion of cancer pain relief and palliative care world-wide while working at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland; and research work at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health on ethical issues related to international medical research. Other pursuits include addressing issues of hunger in the world, women's health and in advocating for pharmacy's participation in global health. Born and brought up in Burma (Myanmar) as a Buddhist, she has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for over seven years.

We are currently in discussion with potential co-sponsors in the following areas: California (San Diego), Colorado/New Mexico, Delaware/Maryland, Georgia (Atlanta, Massachusetts (Boston area),  Michigan, Minneapolis, New York, Ohio (Cincinnati), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, DC metropolitan area, West Virginia, Wisconsin