Spring 2004

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When the William Randolph Hearst Foundation funds a grant, its preferences include supporting institutions of higher education in the health care field and programs that will improve and assure quality health care for underserved populations. So when Dr. Barbara Overman, assistant clinical professor at UNM’s College of Nursing, submitted a proposal to provide mentorship for Navajos in nursing careers, the Hearst Foundation rewarded her efforts with a one-year $150,000 grant.

Navajo Nursing Consortium for Higher Education
The mentoring project’s overall goal is to increase the number of Navajo persons entering the nursing profession and advancing to higher levels of responsibility and leadership in clinical and academic settings. Overman, the project’s principal investigator, and co-investigator Linda Petri, project manager in the college, will accomplish this through two phases.

Navajo Nursing Consortium for Higher Education
First, the project will support the creation and incorporation of the Navajo Nursing Consortium for Higher Education, which includes accomplished, successful Navajo-area Native American nursing professionals. “This project focuses on working with leaders in that community to support, in a community-appropriate and culturally comfortable way, career advancement in nursing in that part of the world,” says Overman.

The consortium will develop a training or curriculum model for mentoring nursing professionals in the Navajo Nation. To begin, it will choose an expert consultant to help create the model. “We want to bring together the most current, state-of-the-art thinking from the outside about how to cultivate leadership and what the role of mentorship may be,” comments Overman.

Why mentorship? In a recent New Mexico Partnerships for Training Project survey of health care workers conducted in northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, 81 percent had an interest in advancing their education in the health professions, and indicated that they would find mentorship helpful. Seventy-seven percent of respondents self-identified as American Indian.

Mentor-Mentee Pairs
The project’s second phase will implement training with the consortium’s model. Some 16-20 nurse mentors from Navajo Nation service areas will receive mentorship training, and then be linked with mentees—junior nurses and those in pre-nursing professions. The mentors will help to guide the mentees in and through careers in nursing.

To support the mentor-mentee pairs, the project intends to provide opportunities for them to attend national and regional conferences in their field. Overman notes that in light of the Navajo Nation’s geographic isolation, the goal is to connect Native American nurses to what’s happening in their field while encouraging them to remain rooted and work in their communities.

Project Impact
Overman points out that there are many Native Americans already working in healthcare as nurse’s aides, orderlies, nurses with associate’s degrees, licensed practical nurses and other pre-professionals. This mentoring project will help them embrace educational opportunities, advance their careers, and prepare for leadership roles. Overman and Petri say that the project will build toward having more advanced-practice nurses who are master’s-prepared and beyond, as well as [assisting their?] entry into the profession. They will be able to take on more highly paid administrative and teaching positions in the Navajo Nation, ultimately impacting the area’s economic development.

“It is increasingly understood that nurses with advanced education make significant contributions to the safety of health care, delivery of primary care and educational services that are essential to these rural communities,” says Overman. These individuals also set an important example for younger Navajos who see them as a valuable and respected resource.

“We’ve been very lucky to receive generous support from the Hearst Foundation, ” comments Overman. It has funded the project for one year, but has invited a continuation proposal for a second year. Overman and Petri intend to take the project a step further by using this additional funding to develop additional mentorship pairs, a Web-based nursing career resource center and additional directions that the leadership group may envision.