South Dakota State University

Report date
August 2016

What has been most instrumental to your progress?

Talking Circles: The purpose was to explore the strengths, needs and barriers that impacts access to and completion of nursing programs by Native American (NA) nursing students. Talking circles were held in reservation and urban communities to attain a more complete understanding of the issues. Within this past year, 7 talking circles were successfully completed with Native American nursing & pre-nursing students on four western reservation communities and in Rapid City. Two were held in Pine Ridge and 2 were held in Rapid City. We traveled to the reservations of Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Lower Brule and the urban NA community of Rapid City. Partnerships were developed with key community leaders and academic institutions, e.g. Oglala Lakota College (OLC). Talking circles were held with urban Native Americans in Rapid City to provide further insight to the challenges and successful strategies of urban NAs seeking to become nurses. The voluntary participants agreed to share their thoughts with the understanding that no identifiers would be used. Themes were identified and analyzed to provide a clear, strategic framework for this community innovation.
Community Outreach: Community outreach is a priority to establish strong collaborative partnerships with the Wokunze Wicaske Alliance (WWA) Advisory Board in identifying strategies, supportive resources, and prioritizing goals to support NA pre-nursing and nursing students. These members are from traditional tribal leaders, academia, health systems and community leaders such as the Rapid City school system, Regional Health System, Indian Health Service, Great Plains Native American Nurses Association (GPNANA), Great Plains Tribal Chairman Health Board, and multiple tribal school systems. Building capacity and generating collective understanding of outreach events for comprehensive community involvement were addressed in these meetings. Strong collaboration and insightful dialogue emerged with the urban and reservation NA Elders, community leaders, community organizations, and academic institutions.
Supporting Native American Nursing Students: Support of NA nursing students is imperative to establish a consistent, caring presence for their success. Our strategies focused upon the:
Creation of a NA nursing student welcoming-center, Wicozani Otipi (meaning in Lakota as “a place to gather, to be in harmony and balance”). This space is for NA nursing students to know they are welcome and have a place in their academic environment to relax, study, and
develop a sense of community. A previous lack of place did not allow for a sense of welcome and community for learning.
Development of a monthly Wahampi (Soup) and Learn that included events and suggestions by the students for learning traditional teachings and Lakota phrases used in culturally-congruent nursing care of Lakota persons and Elders.
Celebration of semester successes and graduation ceremony. With families attending two graduating NA nursing students were honored with a traditional healer ceremonial prayer, a dinner, presentation of star quilts, and gifts to commemorate their success.
Enlistment of Lakota language experts to provide language education to our students suggested in the talking circles.

Key lessons learned

Key Lesson: Cultural knowledge is imperative in working with the Native American nursing students, NA nurses, NA tribal leaders, partners, and tribal communities.
Key Lesson: Need to understand and recognize the slow administrative process to address immediate strategies that will influence a timely response; but the Wokunze Wicaske Alliance was able to adapt and work with the system and constraints.
Collaboration has been key to our progress. The following are a few illustrations utilizing collaboration:
WWA Advisory Board member of Oglala Lakota College identified needs by identifying 204 potential nursing students within the OLC system who have declared pre-nursing as their major. She invited WWA staff to OLC College of Nursing campus in Pine Ridge to facilitate a nurse camp for high school students interested in nursing as a career. As a result of this invaluable collaboration we utilized OLC classroom, skills lab and dormitory for nurse camp.
Regional Health Systems leadership and staff have provided community meeting rooms, technology, hospital tours, funding for CPR training, meals, and IT staff. Collaboration with Regional Health Systems continues to expand.
Collaboration with Great Plains Native American Nurses Association has provided us with a mentorship manual.
Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Health Board (GPTCHB) has provided advisory board support and cultural education opportunities. NA Spiritual Leaders and community leaders have actively supported our progression with spiritual ceremonies and cultural teaching.

Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving

Collaboration has been key to our progress. The following are a few illustrations utilizing collaboration:

The WWA Advisory Board member from Oglala Lakota College identified needs by identifying 204 potential nursing students within the OLC system who have declared pre-nursing as their major. She invited WWA staff to OLC College of Nursing campus in Pine Ridge to facilitate a nurse camp for high school students interested in nursing as a career. As a result of this invaluable collaboration we utilized OLC classroom, skills lab and dormitory for nurse camp.

Regional Health Systems leadership and staff have provided community meeting rooms, technology, hospital tours, funding for CPR training, meals, and IT staff. Collaboration with Regional Health Systems continues to expand.
Collaboration with Great Plains Native American Nurses Association has provided us with a mentorship manual., Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Health Board (GPTCHB) has provided financial resources, cultural education and professional training for students, NA Spiritual Leaders and community leaders have actively supported our progression with teaching and spiritual ceremonies.

Other key elements of Community Innovation

Communal sharing and action as a team vs a hierarchal leadership. The outcomes we have achieved are results of adhering to Lakota values that emphasize ideals of community, affinity, generosity, cooperation, and strength. Listening to the voices of the pre-nursing and nursing students, graduate nurses and the community members. Presence is important and must be sustained for the NA nurses nursing students to build trust and community.
Enlisted information from graduated nurses through talking circles that provided key insight into effectively supporting current and future students. Information pointing to financial needs and the value of family support have directed us in making decisions about current programming and requests for funds.

If you could do it all over again...

Be more aware of everyone’s time and efforts; limit time spent on steps which are less impactful such as creating a logo. Recognizing the importance of long range planning for workforce development starting with the primary schools rather than waiting until secondary school to increase interest in nursing as a career and target efforts to instill NA students’ confidence in successfully attaining a nursing degree. Be more aware that some state training programs have a cost associated with their offered contributions or participation. Therefore, collaborative or partnerships resources that require financial payment make it difficult to use and/or sustain.

One last thought

This grant has given us funding to take our big idea and move forward. It has allowed us to collaborate with many leaders to focus upon increasing NA nursing students by hiring experts to take action and create solutions within the community.