Indiana University South Bend is launching a new program to train nurses in mental health de-escalation, thanks to a three-year grant from the Valinhos Foundation.
Chief Nurse Administrator Barbara White said the training comes at a critical time.
“Nurses are the most at-risk profession for experiencing workplace violence. We need to find a way to make workplaces safer, to de-escalate before things become violent, before violent situations cause harm,” White said.The program will begin by certifying a group of instructors. They will then train students, faculty and staff in the nursing program. White said the training won’t stop there.
“So we will train 150 of our nursing students and then from there we will take it out into the broader IU South Bend community and the broader South Bend community in general. We expect that the reach is going to be much deeper, broader than just our own nursing students, that it’s really going to make it out into our community,” she said.White said the initiative could also help address the ongoing nursing shortage.
“The statistics that are coming out of nursing right now is that somewhere in the range of 40% to 50% of nurses do not persist in nursing past three years in the profession. That is very scary for all of us,” White said.Beyond training future nurses, White said she hopes the program changes how the wider community responds to crisis.
“At some point as a society we need to say enough is enough and we need to protect each other. Let’s intervene early, let’s stay tuned into each other, let’s perceive and then let’s act,” she said.White said the goal is to make the training a permanent part of the curriculum at IUSB and a lasting resource for the South Bend community.
