Nursing Workforce Development (NWD) - Regional One Health (ROH) proposes the Learn, Earn, and Advance in Practice (LEAP) Program, a four-year Nursing Workforce Development initiative designed to increase nursing education opportunities, retention, graduation, and workforce entry for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Memphis, Shelby County, and the Mid-South region. LEAP aligns with the HRSA Nursing Workforce Development program goal of increasing the number of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds who enroll in and graduate from nursing degree programs through comprehensive student support services and evidence-based workforce development strategies. The Mid-South continues to experience significant nursing workforce shortages while many prospective nursing students face financial hardship, transportation challenges, caregiving responsibilities, academic barriers, and limited access to mentorship and professional networks. These challenges can impede enrollment, persistence, graduation, and successful entry into the nursing workforce. LEAP will address these barriers through a structured academic-practice partnership between Regional One Health and Southwest Tennessee Community College (STCC). The program will support 16 unduplicated nursing students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are enrolled in or accepted into STCC’s Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) in Nursing program. Participants will engage in an earn-as-you-learn model that combines nursing education with paid work-based learning and supervised clinical experiences at Regional One Health. Students will receive individualized barrier assessments, student success planning, mentoring, tutoring, academic support, workforce readiness activities, preceptor-guided clinical training, and financial assistance designed to reduce barriers to educational success. Support may include tuition and fees, books and educational supplies, uniforms, transportation assistance, childcare assistance, health insurance support, and emergency financial assistance. LEAP will be housed within Regional One Health’s Nursing Residency Program and will leverage the organization’s existing nursing education, mentorship, clinical training, and transition-to-practice infrastructure. Students will receive experiential learning in a high-acuity safety-net health system that serves medically vulnerable populations throughout the Mid-South. Clinical experiences will expose participants to trauma care, emergency services, maternal and newborn care, inpatient and outpatient care, complex care management, and interprofessional team-based practice. Program objectives are to: (1) increase enrollment, retention, and graduation of nursing students from disadvantaged backgrounds; (2) strengthen academic, social, and financial supports that improve educational success; and (3) recruit, train, and retain nurse preceptors and mentors who enhance learning environments and support student achievement. ROH will track participant outcomes, graduation, workforce entry, and continued education for at least one year following program completion. By creating a structured pathway from nursing education through workforce entry, LEAP will strengthen the regional nursing workforce pipeline, improve opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and increase the number of nurses prepared to serve medically vulnerable communities throughout the Mid-South.
