SPECIAL FEATURES: EDUCATION

Finding Common Ground in PublicHealth Nursing Education and PracticeLindaO. Keller, Marjorie A. Scha¡er, PatriciaM. Schoon, Bonnie Bruesho¡, and Rose Jost

ABSTRACT Preparation of the public health nursing (PHN) workforce requires public health nursesfrom academia and practice to collaborate. However, a shortage of PHN clinical sites may lead tocompetition between schools of nursing for student placements. The Henry Street Consortium, a group of 5baccalaureate schools of nursing and 13 local health departments in the state of Minnesota, developed amodel for collaboration between PHN education and practice. This paper describes the developmentprocess—the forming, storming, norming, and performing stages—experienced by the Henry StreetConsortium members. The consortium developed a set of entry-level core PHN competencies that are uti-lized by both education and practice. It developed menus of learning opportunities that were used to designpopulation-based PHN clinical experiences. In addition, the consortium created a model for training andsustaining a preceptor network. The members of the Henry Street Consortium collaborated rather thancompeted, used consensus for decision making, and respected and accepted different points of view. Thiscollaboration significantly impacted how schools of nursing and local health departments work together.The consortium’s ability to retain its relevance, energy, and momentum for both academic and agencypartners sustains the collaboration.

Key words: collaboration, nursing workforce, partnerships, public health nursing competencies,public health nursing education.

Collaboration between practice and academia is criti-cal for the preparation of the public health nursing(PHN) workforce. The Henry Street Consortium, acollaboration of five baccalaureate schools of nursing,13 local health departments, and the PHN section ofthe Minnesota State Health Department, created an

innovative partnership model for developing thefuture public health nurse workforce.

Today’s public health system faces increasingthreats of emerging and reemerging infectiousdiseases, an epidemic of chronic disease related tolifestyle, a rapidly aging population with increasinghealth needs, and pressure to be prepared foremergencies that range from pandemic influenza tobioterrorism. Public health nurses play a crucial rolein addressing these population health needs.

A consistent, effective, and efficient PHN work-force is critical for improving the health of popu-lations. However, in surveys conducted by theAssociation of State and Territorial Health Officials(ASTHO) in 2003 and 2007, PHN experienced themost shortages out of key public health occupations(ASTHO, 2008). In Minnesota, local health depart-ments have reported an ongoing problem with re-cruiting PHN positions for many years. For example,in 2003, 60% of health departments in Minnesotareported difficulty in recruiting qualified applicants(Minnesota Department of Health, 2004). This

Linda O. Keller, D.N.P., R.N., F.A.A.N., is ClinicalAssociate Professor, School of Nursing, University ofMinnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Marjorie A. Schaf-fer, Ph.D., R.N., Bethel University, St. Paul, Minnesota.Patricia M. Schoon, M.P.H., R.N., P.H.N., Retired, St.Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota. BonnieBruesho¡, M.S.N., P.H.N., R.N., Dakota County PublicHealth Department, St. Paul, Minnesota. Rose Jost,M.Ed., B.S., R.N., P.H.N., Bloomington Public HealthDepartment, Bloomington, Minnesota.Correspondence to:Marjorie A. Scha¡er, Bethel University, St. Paul, MN.E-mail: m-scha¡er@bethel.edu

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Public Health Nursing Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 261–2700737-1209/r 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.doi: 10.1111/j.1525-1446.2010.00905.x

serious shortage of public health nurses is likely toworsen as the demand for registered nurses in Min-nesota will increase 28% by the year 2014 (MinnesotaDepartment of Employment and Economic Develop-ment, 2007). Minnesota has a tremendous need to re-cruit and retain skilled public health nurses who caneffectively deliver quality public health services. Astatewide assessment completed in 2001 identifiednumerous issues related to workforce preparation forpublic health nurses: (1) many recent graduate nursesdid not have the skills that local health departmentswere seeking; (2) faculty were having difficulty pro-curing sufficient numbers of local health departmentclinical sites for their students; (3) local health de-partments would not accept more students due tolimited resources and staff time; and (4) schools ofnursing and local health departments had not histor-ically collaborated on PHN workforce preparation.

Clinical experiences, also known as practica or fieldexperiences, are an essential component of teachingpopulation-based practice to future public healthnurses. The Minnesota Board of Nursing mandates atleast 30hr of clinical experience in public health set-tings for all baccalaureate nursing programs (Minne-sota State Administrative Rules, 2010). In Minnesota,local health departments are the preferred settings forundergraduate PHN student clinical experiences. As aresponse to these concerns, public health nurse consul-tants at a state health department sought and receiveda federal Division of Nursing grant. The purpose of theLinking Public Health Nursing Practice and Educationto Promote Population Health grant was to developcollaborative projects that linked schools of nursingwith health departments to design population-basedclinical experiences for PHN students. There were fiveregional projects throughout the state of Minnesota: (1)Bi-State Prairie Project, (2) Henry Street Consortium,(3) NorthStar Cornerstone Project, (4) Partners withPassion for Public Health, and the (5) South CentralLinking PHN Education and Practice Project (Keller,Strohschein, Schaffer, & Lia-Hoagberg, 2004). Thispaper describes the development of the Henry StreetConsortium, the largest of the linking projects.

Partnerships in Public HealthNursing Clinical Education

Definition of collaboration. Collaboration is animportant strategy for creating effective student

learning experiences. Collaboration commits two ormore persons or organizations to achieving a commongoal through enhancing the capacity of one or more ofthem to promote and protect health (Henneman, Lee,& Cohen, 1995). Collaboration is the preferred modelwhen the goal is to transform the way in whichorganizations accomplish their work. Listening to oneanother, respecting the views and the contributionsof others, appreciating the differences of collabora-tive partners, and developing trust all contribute toeffective collaboration (Kenny, 2002). Successful col-laborations include effective leadership, commitmentof the participants, shared values and a sense ofpurpose, linkages between groups and individuals,identification of strategies and resources to achievegoals, a structure to support the collaborative work,and internal systems to support the structure(Minnesota Department of Health, 2001).

Benefits of collaboration. Collaboration be-tween practice and academia leads to enhancedstudent learning and an increase in the number ofbaccalaureate graduates interested in PHN as a career(Anderson, Richmond, & Stanhope, 2004; Hall-Long,2005). Collaboration also leads to increased commu-nity placements and greater availability of PHNmentors (Sowan, Moffatt, & Canales, 2004; Zahner &Gredig, 2005). The increase in effective interactionand communication between faculty, public healthnurses, and students enhances the richness, depth,and breadth of student learning at all three levelsof practice: individual; systems; and community(Anderson et al., 2004; Hall-Long, 2004; Zahner &Gredig, 2005).

Collaboration examples. Most examples ofcollaborative partnerships between academia andpractice have been between one school of nursing andone organization, for example, development of clinicallearning experiences in local school districts (Brosnanet al., 2005; Kreulen, Bednarz, Wehrwein, & Davis,2008); implementation of health fairs (Maltby, 2006);expansion of clinical learning experiences in under-served areas (Aponte & Nickitas, 2007; Hall-Long,2004); and clinical learning opportunities in faith-based settings (Herman & Sassatelli, 2002).Collaborations between more than two partnersincluded: (1) a school of nursing that worked withthree health departments to diversify students’ publichealth clinical learning experiences (Reifsnider, Hook,

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Muennink, & Vogt, 2004) and (2) two schools ofnursing, two tribal health agencies, and three countypublic health agencies that developed an academicpractice partnership (Fauchald, 2004).

Partnerships have resulted in: (1) increasedstudent involvement with fewer observational onlyexperiences (Siegrist, 2004); (2) a mentoring partner-ship model for B.S.N. students (Sowan et al., 2004);(3) pairing students with preceptors at state, local,and district public health agencies (Anderson et al.,2004); and (4) increased student opportunities toparticipate in the provision of essential public healthservices (Anderson et al., 2004; Ouzts, Brown, &Swearingen, 2006). Collaborative models betweeneducation and practice have also facilitated thedevelopment of population-based PHN competencies(Anderson et al., 2004; Kaiser & Rudolph, 2003;Reifsnider et al., 2004; Zahner & Gredig, 2005).

The Henry Street Consortium

The Henry Street Consortium is an innovativeacademic/practice collaboration of multiple schoolsof nursing, local health departments, and the PHNsection of the Minnesota Department of Health.This article describes the process through whichthe consortium developed a productive, successfulpartnership.

The consortium went through Tuckman’s (1965)normative stages of group development: forming,storming, norming, and performing. These four stagesrepresent a continuum and provided a framework forthe development of the consortium. Groups movefrom forming, which involves testing boundaries andestablishing dependence with leaders and other mem-bers to storming, which involves intragroup conflictand resistance to group influence. In the norm-ing phase, a group develops in-group feeling andcohesiveness, new standards evolve, and new rolesare adopted. In the performing phase, rules becomeflexible and functional. The group structure can thensupport task performance (Tuckman, 1965).

Forming: finding common groundThe Henry Street Consortium began as an academic/practice partnership between five baccalaureateschools of nursing and the 13 local health depart-ments that served as clinical sites in a metropolitanarea of 2.6 million people. The regional public healthnurse consultant from the state health department

provided ongoing leadership and guidance to the con-sortium over the grant period. Grant staff reducedbarriers to collaboration by arranging for meetingrooms and provision of food and sending out agendasand meeting minutes.

The Henry Street Consortium included many or-ganizations that did not have a history of working to-gether. The partnership is unique not only because ofthe number of partners but also because it involvedcollaboration between schools of nursing. When thecall for linking project proposals was issued, the firstdecision that the baccalaureate nursing programs andhealth departments had to make was whether theywould work separately or together with other schools.The schools of nursing often competed for finite com-munity clinical resources and PHN faculty, and didnot have a history of collaboration.

Given the competitive environment for clinicalsites, public health agencies often had to makedifficult decisions regarding the allocation of theirresources for clinical sites. A public health nurse,who represented the agency perspective, said:

Past attempts to formalize partnerships amongthe various schools and the health departmentin order to effectively deal with the increasing needsfor students placements had failed. There wasan ongoing dilemma between our commitment tothe preparation of the future workforce and thepressure of requests for additional student place-ments. Staff was often overwhelmed, frustrated andunable to address the competing interests of theschools. Our health department was ‘‘maxed out’’with students and desperate to have the schoolsrealize the difficulties we were experiencing inmanaging the current student numbers. The schoolsdid not realize the magnitude of requests thatthey were making and the stress that those de-mands were creating. Something had to change. Theopportunity the Consortium offered meant there wasfinally hope that there might be solution to ourdilemma.

Although schools of nursing had traditionallycompeted for clinical placements, collaboration even-tually emerged as an option. As meetings and negoti-ations continued, it became obvious that the nursingprograms and health departments in the region wereconnected in ways that made them one large system.Several health departments hosted students frommore than one school of nursing and were reluctantto enter into a collaboration that did not include allof the schools. The decision was made to submita collaborative proposal. While many names were

Keller et al.: Finding Common Ground 263

considered, ‘‘Henry Street,’’ the birthplace of PHN inAmerica, had universal appeal to both educators andpublic health staff alike. The call for proposals requiredthat all student clinical experiences, to the degree possi-ble: (1) incorporate an assessment of a population;(2) reflect experiences with individuals, families, com-munities, and the systems; (3) address the broad deter-minants of health; and (4) reflect primary, secondary,and tertiary prevention. The application also requiredpotential projects to develop strategies to make clinicalexperiences interesting and engaging to the students.

The Henry Street Consortium proposed a boldgoal—to prepare public health nurses with the popu-lation-based competencies necessary for entry intoPHN practice. The consortium planned to develop aset of entry-level PHN competencies that would beutilized by both education and practice. It would alsodevelop ‘‘menus’’ of population-based clinical learn-ing opportunities unique to each health department.In the process, the consortium proposed to create anew model of collaboration. The proposal was ac-cepted by the state health department and the HenryStreet Consortium was launched.

Storming: working through tensionsThe diverse membership of the Henry Street Consor-tium included three private colleges with religiousaffiliation, one state university, and one major landgrant university. All offered either baccalaureatenursing programs and/or R.N.-B.S.N. completionprograms. Two offered postbaccalaureate nursingprograms. All had graduate programs. The publichealth departments included one large urban agency,one visiting nurse association, seven suburban agen-cies, and four rural agencies. Some of the members ofthe new consortium knew each other; most did not.

During most of the 1st year of the project, ten-sions ran high. The members of the consortium seri-ously underestimated the time that it would take toestablish the trust relationships necessary for truecollaboration. The situation was awkward at best anddue to the lack of trust, group members resistedbreaking into smaller groups to work. Every memberwanted to be involved in every decision. Manymonthspassed before group trust had reached a point wheregroup members were willing to leave some decisionsup to a group of their peers.

Two notable strategies that fostered the growthof the consortium identity were the development ofthe Henry Street Consortium poster (see Fig. 1) and

brochure. Within the first few weeks of forming, thegroup decided that it needed to establish an identityin the community. A small group developed, printed,and disseminated posters to consortium members,which were proudly displayed in each organization.The poster enhanced group identity and cohesiveness.

A second strategy was the development of a bro-chure by the ‘‘Lunch Bunch,’’ a small workgroup ofeducators and public health staff. This group built re-lationships through meeting regularly at a restaurantto work on brochure design. They frequently broughtthe brochure to the large group for review and com-ments. The production of the brochure resulted inthe clarification of the overall consortium’s identity.Working together on the poster and brochure facili-tated the development of trust relationships betweenconsortium members.

Another significant event that contributed to re-lationship development in the storming phase was theemergence of the Henry Street Players TheaterTroupe. In response to a request for a presentationfrom the Minnesota Association of Colleges of Nurs-ing, a small group composed of public health staff andeducators created a skit that portrayed the contrastingviewpoints of the schools of nursing and the publichealth departments. Creating the skit was a turningpoint in the storming phase for the consortium. Theskit provided a safe means to honestly share concernsand fears. Scenes portrayed the evolution of relation-ships within the consortium: initial distrust, anxiety,and skepticism; fear of being excluded or embar-rassed; the beginning development of trust; and fi-nally, honest dialogue and discussion of purpose. Theskit utilized humor through costumes (i.e., academicrobes), props (i.e., four foot-long to-do-lists), andposter-size cartoon balloons that expressed secretthoughts and fears. Examples of the cartoon balloonsincluded: ‘‘This will never work!’’ ‘‘They might rejectwhat I have to say,’’ and ‘‘I better show up at the nextmeeting.’’ By the end of the skit, the cartoon balloonsaid, ‘‘I like this group.’’ The play was a hit and waseventually performed for several audiences.

Norming: building relationshipsA variety of strategies were used to build relationships.Every meeting included a time for sharing informationand providing updates, a natural way to engage people.Each meeting also included refreshments, which en-couraged socialization. Educator and public health staffcochairs were selected. When workgroups were formed,

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Figure 1. Henry Street Consortium Poster

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the same ground rule was always applied—an equal ra-tio of educators and public health staff. For the first sev-eral years, the entire consortium met monthly. Groupcohesion grew slowly.

After numerous discussions between the educatorsand the public health staff, the Henry Street Consortiumidentified a set of principles to guide the development ofstudent experiences. The Guiding Principles for Bacca-laureate Public Health Nursing Student Clinicals es-tablished the conditions and ground rules for the collab-orative work of the consortium (Table 1), reflecting thenorming phase. For example, health departmentswanted all students to have a part of their PHN clinicalexperience within the governmental public health sys-tem if possible. The schools of nursing were very frankabout the fact that this would be impossible to achieveunless the health departments worked with the schoolsto create opportunities. At this point, consortium mem-bers were able to honestly share their concerns.

The Guiding Principles also formalized the con-sortium’s expectations for change. Schools had to beflexible, agree to coordinate with each other, and lookfor creative options for clinicals. Public health depart-ments that had not hosted students had to open theiragencies to meet the demands for student placements.Public health staff and educators persevered throughmany candid and open discussions. Consortiummembers began to see that if they creatively workedtogether, there could be enough student placements.The transition from a sense of scarcity to a belief thatthe problem could be resolved was instrumental inmoving the group from competition to collaboration.

Performing: accomplishments of the HenryStreet ConsortiumHaving successfully completed the forming, storming,and norming phases, the members of the Henry Street

Consortium moved on to performance. Partnershipmembers created and disseminated products thatpromote population-based PHN clinicals.

Competencies. The consortium’s first productwas the development of a set of entry-level corecompetencies for baccalaureate-prepared nurses(Table 2). After reviewing existing sets of PHNcompetencies, the group determined that most com-petency sets defined expert-level PHN practice. Basedon Benner’s novice to expert model (Benner, 1984),the consortium members decided to develop a set ofentry-level competencies for the novice that met theneed of both education and practice. The process ofdeveloping the competencies became a powerfulmechanism for sharing perspectives and world viewsof the educators and the public health staff.

Clinical menu. The consortium created ‘‘me-nus’’ of clinical learning experiences. The menu pro-vides a template for clinical experiences based on thePublic Health InterventionWheel (Keller, Strohschein,Lia-Hoagberg, & Schaffer, 2004). The Public HealthIntervention Wheel is a practice-based, evidence-sup-ported model that has redefined and reinvigoratedPHN practice across the United States. The ‘‘Wheel’’depicts how public health nurses improve populationhealth through interventions with communities, iden-tified individuals within communities, and the systemsthat impact health. Experiences were organized byintervention (surveillance, disease and other healththreat investigation, outreach, screening, case-finding,referral and follow-up, case management, delegatedfunctions, health teaching, counseling, consultation,coalition building, collaboration, community organiz-ing, advocacy, social marketing, and policy develop-ment and enforcement) and by level of practice

TABLE 1. Guiding Principles for Baccalaureate Public Health Nursing Student Clinical Experiences

Successful student experiences require effective partnerships among faculty, local health department staff, and studentsIn partnership with faculty, local health departments will provide preceptors to guide student clinical experiencesAll students will have at least part of their public health nursing clinical experience within the governmental public health systemPublic health nursing clinical experiences will:

Reflect community prioritiesMeet the learning needs of the studentBe meaningful to the studentContribute to the achievement of public health goalEach clinical experience has the potential to meet a variety of the clinical competencies

All students will have experience with communities, systems, individuals, and families, with some exposure to home visitingduring this or other educational experiences

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(individual/family, community and systems). Exam-ples from the clinical menu are listed in Table 3.

Students, faculty, and public health nurse precep-tors select student clinical experiences from thismenu. The variety of clinical experiences on the menureflects the diversity of the health departments andthe communities they serve (rural, suburban, andurban). The clinical experiences reflect actualcommunity needs and offer opportunities to partici-pate in community activities that meet those needs.

Collaborative clinical placements. An im-portant outcome of Henry Street Consortium meet-ings is the collaboration between schools in workingout clinical placements and collaboration betweenPHN staff and across schools of nursing to plan PHNstudent clinical experiences. A faculty member com-mented:

The public health nursing faculty was accustomed tocompeting with other schools and their faculty forclinical sites. Now the faculty work collaborativelywith educators from five schools of nursing, serve as

resources for each other, and even share someclinical sites. Our partnerships with public healthand community agency staff has improved as wework collaboratively to provide clinical experiencesthat meet the needs of the agencies, community, andour students and programs.

The Henry Street Consortium provides concretestrategies and tools for preparing public health nursesfor the future. Although learning assignments varyamong the schools, there is greater consistency in theuse of population-based concepts, such as the PublicHealth Intervention Wheel. Consortium membershave worked together on projects in which a group ofstudents from one school complete the assessmentand planning of a project and a group of studentsfrom a different school pick up the project in the nextsemester and implement and evaluate the project.Relationship development, cross fertilization ofideas, and collaborative problem solving increased op-tions for learning experiences in an environment of lim-ited placements. There is community respect and

TABLE 2. Entry-Level Public Health Nursing Competencies

1. Applies the public health nursing process to communities, systems, individuals, and families2. Utilizes basic epidemiological principles (the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population) in public health

nursing practice3. Utilizes collaboration to achieve public health goals4. Works within the responsibility and authority of the governmental public health system5. Practices public health nursing within the auspices of the Nurse Practice Act6. Effectively communicates with communities, systems, individuals, families, and colleagues7. Establishes and maintains caring relationships with communities, systems, individuals, and families8. Shows evidence of commitment to social justice, the greater good, and the public health principles9. Demonstrates nonjudgmental and unconditional acceptance of people different from self10. Incorporates mental, physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental aspects of health into assessment, planning,

implementation, and evaluation11. Demonstrates leadership

TABLE 3. Henry Street Clinical Menu: Examples of Population-Based Public Health Nursing Student Activities

Systems levela Community levelb Individual/family levelc

AdvocacyAdvocate for interpreter services Advocate for parenting classes at a center in an

apartment complexParticipate/observe mandated

reportsOutreachLocate and link unlicensed day careproviders to community resources

Develop brochures for topics identified by staffsuch as ‘‘meth’’ labs or flu immunizations

Link low income pregnant womenwithin a community to resources

Note. aSystems level—Changes organizations, policies, laws, and power structures.bCommunity level—Changes community norms, attitudes, awareness, practices, and behaviors.cIndividual/family level—Changes knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, practices, and behaviors of individuals, alone or as part of afamily, class, or group.

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affirmation for the important work the consortiummembers do to ensure a competent PHN workforce.

Preceptors. Health departments in the consor-tium also committed to send their preceptors topreceptor training. Preceptors were an essentialcomponent of the linking grant. The grant providedpreceptor training as well as a preceptor handbook(Office of Public Health Practice, 2005). Henry Streetmembers recognized the important impact of a pre-ceptor on a student’s clinical experience. To depictthis impact, the Henry Street Consortium produced avideo, Public Health Preceptors: A Guiding Light,that portrayed actual clinical experiences of severalnursing student in health departments. The voices ofthe students in the video, recorded at health depart-ments, effectively portrayed the qualities of a greatpreceptor and the importance of the impression lefton the student by the preceptor, positive and negative.The video was distributed to all members of theconsortium and local libraries.

Conferences. Henry Street Consortium mem-bers presented at numerous state, national, andinternational conferences at venues, including theAmerican Public Health Association, the Associationof Community Health Nurse Educators (ACHNE),Sigma Theta Tau International, and the MinnesotaAssociation of Colleges of Nursing. The Henry StreetConsortium and its achievements were highlightedat a large national conference ‘‘Igniting the Spark:Linking Public Health Nursing Practice and Educa-tion to Promote Population Health’’ that was held in2004 in conjunction with the annual meetings ofACHNE and the Association of State and TerritorialDirectors of Nursing.

Unanticipated Outcomes

The networking and resource sharing that continuesto occur among the members of the consortium hasresulted in many other collaborations and opportuni-ties. For example, a partnership that began in theHenry Street Consortium between faculty at Univer-sity of Minnesota School of Nursing and the Wash-ington County Department of Public Health andEnvironment ultimately developed into a project thatwas awarded Division of Nursing funding as a ‘‘PublicHealth Nursing Field Experience’’ project. This pro-ject developed student and faculty competence in

nursing documentation system fluency and computerliteracy.

The Henry Consortium has also impacted prac-tice. Several participating health departments ac-knowledged the importance of formally dedicatingtime to precept, coordinate, and plan nursing studentexperiences by incorporating these job functionsinto PHN position descriptions. One health depart-ment has institutionalized this commitment byallocating 1 day/week of a coordinator’s time to stu-dent experiences.

In July 2003, the Henry Street Consortium re-ceived a first place Linkage Award from the Council onLinkages Between Academia and Public Health Prac-tice, a coalition of representatives from 17 nationalpublic health organizations that work to further aca-demic/practice collaboration (Public Health Foun-dation, 2008). This national award recognizesexemplary collaborative activities between publichealth departments and academic institutions ofhigher learning. Henry Street Consortium representa-tives traveled to Nashville, TN, to receive their awardat the Annual ASTHO meeting in July 2003. Theaward included a US$1,000 cash prize. The HenryStreet Consortium used the award money to host acelebration and reception honoring agency preceptorswho worked with PHN students.

Sustainability of Partnership

When the grant that supported the Henry Street Con-sortium ended in 2005, the consortium members re-committed to ongoing collaboration and made thedecision to continue. The group expanded its mem-bership to include additional schools of nursing andpartners that also have a population focus, such asschool nurses. Many of the original ground rules con-tinue; for example, cochairs represent both educationand practice.

The greatest challenge for any collaboration uponcompletion of a large project is maintaining its pur-pose. The consortium has retained its relevance andmomentum for both academic and agency partners.The quarterly meetings energize both faculty andstaff. In 2009, the Henry Street Consortium re-affirmed their commitment to the collaborationthrough refining the mission/vision statement thatincluded specific goals: (1) ensure the continuation ofthe Henry Street Consortium as a viable, flexible, andsustainable partnership between PHN education and

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practice and (2) create teaching learning strategies topromote the achievement of entry-level population-based PHN competencies for students and novicePHN staff.

Local health department staff and faculty con-tinue to share trends and issues related to currentpractice, programs, policies, opportunities, and re-sources. As a result, PHN student clinical experiencesare more relevant and up to date. For example, mem-bers recently developed a PowerPoint template forstudent orientation that provides consistent informa-tion about public health that is used in diverse clinicallocations.

The Henry Street Consortium recognizes thechallenges of ongoing collaboration, such as person-nel changes in membership. With the increasing needto provide clinical public health experiences for R.N.to B.S.N. students, official public health departmentsare often unable to meet the demand for studentexperiences. Varied length of student experiencesand diversity in student preparation pose difficultiesfor both faculty and staff. Faculty and students desiremore experiential and fewer observational learningexperiences in PHN. Another ongoing challenge is thediffering expectations for faculty supervision ofstudents while in clinical. In order to sustain theperforming phase, it will be important to continue toprovide time for sharing opportunities and experi-ences, educational strategies, and resources forpreparing the future PHN workforce.

Conclusion

The Henry Street Consortium collaborated ratherthan competed, used consensus for decision making,and respected and accepted different points of view.This collaboration significantly impacted how schoolsof nursing and local health departments work to-gether in the metropolitan area. School and clinicalsites represented in the Henry Street Consortium pro-duce over 850 baccalaureate nurses each year. TheHenry Street Consortium has designed student expe-riences that contribute to meeting the health improve-ment goals of the health department. Collaborationoutcomes include validation of PHN practice forhealth department staff and an interconnected net-work with a passion for developing the future PHNworkforce. Perhaps, most importantly, students placehigher value on their PHN experience.

The Henry Street Consortium has persistedthrough the normative stages of group develop-ment—forming, storming, norming, and performing.Consortium members built a solid partnership thatcontinues to perform by playing deliberate, activeroles in creating a competent PHN workforce. Thefoundation for a proactive and interactive systemof collaboration between key PHN stakeholders inthis community is in place and has a permanenthome—the Henry Street Consortium.

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