School Nurse Cultural Competence Needs Assessment

Abstract

NASN conducted a needs assessment to learn about the cultural competence skills needed by school nurses. The purpose of this article is to describe the results of the needs assessment and describe actions taken to address cultural competency needs for the U.S. school nurse workforce.

Public School Nursing Practice in the United States

“…While trend data on the demographics of school nurses are unavailable to determine the change over time, recent past surveys also report a lack of diversity in race/ethnicity and gender in the school nurse workforce (Bergren & Monslave, 2012; Matza, Maughan, & Barrows, 2015). Nationally, registered nurses also tend to be Caucasian: 75.4% are Caucasian compared to 84.3% of school nurses in our analyses.…”

Cultural Competency Education in Pharmacy Curricula-Need and Implementation

“…Matza et al 61 Nursing School United States Describe which skills nurses need in cultural competency.…”

School Nurse Cultural Competency Development Using the National CLAS Standards: A Quality Improvement Project

“…These students pose unique cultural and linguistic challenges for school nurses who must address health needs to promote school attendance and educational achievement. Unfortunately, most school nurses do not collectively reflect the diversity of their students, nor do they report receiving adequate ongoing cultural competency (CC) education to confidently provide care for the students at the level they prefer (Matza, Maughan, & Barrows, 2015). This widespread national challenge is exemplified in a midsize Midwestern school district experiencing significant growth in culturally diverse students with a strong presence of immigrant and refugee families.…”

“…The School Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice states that school nurses are to "practice in a manner that is congruent with cultural diversity and inclusion principles" (American Nurses Association and NASN, 2017, p. 63). Authors repeatedly highlight the need for culturally competent school nurse practice (Carr & Knutson, 2015;Lowe & Archibald, 2009;Mendonca et al, 2009), yet there is acknowledgement that many school nurses feel consistent levels of uncertainty when caring for culturally diverse students regardless of their educational background (Matza et al, 2015;Markey, Tilki, & Taylor, 2018). Although helpful documents such as the Guidelines for Implementing Culturally Competent Nursing Care (Douglas et al, 2014) exist, there is little in the literature to suggest what defines appropriate CC education designed specifically for school nurses, which may be related in part to the complex and qualitative nature of cultural competence in various settings.…”

“…The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) were created in 2000 and rereleased in an enhanced version in 2013 by the Office of Minority Health (OMH) through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2017a) as a guideline of principles to reduce health-care disparities across health-care institutions (https://thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/assets/pdfs/ EnhancedCLASStandardsBlueprint.pdf). NASN collaborated with OMH in 2015 (Matza et al, 2015) to develop a webinar addressing how the standards relate to school health. Carr and Knutson (2015) suggest the development of CC education for school nurses could benefit from the incorporation of CLAS Standards, though no subsequent studies or projects were found demonstrating its specific use in this search.…”