Faith Community Nursing Course Added for Faculty
Classes centered on holistic health and illness prevention
Faith community nursing (FCN), also known as parish nursing, is a specialized practice of professional nursing that focuses on the intentional care of the spirit as well as on the promotion of wholistic health (body~mind~spirit) and prevention or minimization of illness within the context of a faith community. (Faith Community Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice, 2017). FCN is recognized as a specialty by the American Nurses Association.
Faith community nursing is essential to the profession of nursing, and the profession must continue to spread the word and encourage others to participate to promote health, wellness and wholeness of all people in the faith communities’ nurses are members of and serve.
In the spring 2022, the DHCON proudly offered the Foundations of Faith Community Nursing course (Westberg Institute), sponsored by Connecticut Council of Parish Nurse Coordinators, to all full-time faculty.
This Foundations course provided what nursing faculty needed to begin or continue serving their congregations in the role of a faith community nurse. The FCN offering was a 10-week online course divided into weekly modules and faculty received 36.5 CEU at the completion. The course was facilitated by Deborah Ringen, MSN RN-BC, faith community nurse and minister of health and wellness at Southern New England Conference.
Participants included: Susan A. Goncalves, DNP, MS, RN-BC, SHU’s faith community nurse coordinator; Monica Oris, director of population health; and Linda Cook, DNP, APRN, NNP-BC; Linda Morrow, DNP, MSN, MBA, CNOR, CPHQ; Angela Chlebowski, DNP, RN C-EFM; LuAnn Etcher, Ph.D., GNP-BC, CPG; and Ann Marie Simmons, Ph.D, RN, all five of whom are parish nurses from Griffin Health, the first parish nurse program in the State of Connecticut.
Special thanks to Marilyn Faber, director of St. Vincent’s Parish Nursing and Connecticut Council for Parish Nursing president, for ongoing support and funding to be able to provide this special offering to SHU DHCON.