The primary goal of this project is to recruit and train clinical faculty and preceptors in local and regional community healthcare and academic organizations which serve rural and medically underserved populations. This addresses the funding preference of this grant, under qualification 2, focused on substantially benefiting underserved populations. The population of clinical faculty and preceptors that will be recruited and trained through this proposed project include federally designated Medically Underserved Areas (MUA) and Medically Underserved Populations (MUP) throughout Illinois and the HHS Region 5 states, as noted in our funding preference request. The objectives of this project are: 1) Establish a sustainable clinical faculty and preceptor training program to expand the nursing workforce serving rural and underserved populations in Illinois and the HHS Region 5 states; 2) Foster a learning experience that promotes knowledge building and enhancement of clinical faculty and preceptor abilities, resiliency, and emotional intelligence; 3) Maintain, create, and expand collaborative partnerships between academia and practice to promote clinical faculty and preceptor education to increase the number of clinical faculty and preceptors training nurses in rural and underserved communities; 4) Increase the recruitment of clinical faculty and preceptors working in rural and underserved communities within HHS Region 5. Graduate nursing students enrolled in nurse educator programs, nurse practitioner programs, and nurse anesthesia programs, clinical faculty, registered nurses and advanced practice nurses working in inpatient and outpatient settings, and new and existing preceptors in HHS Region 5 states will be the targeted population for this project. Students enrolled in graduate nursing programs are often experienced registered nurses who are already or will soon take on preceptor roles and clinical faculty roles in the nursing workforce. Cur
rent preceptors in the community and clinical faculty are often engaged in the role of preceptor without formal training and lack support. The project seeks to reach populations through the development of easily accessible self-paced internet-based training modules, an annual clinical faculty and preceptor conference, and incorporation of emotional intelligence and resiliency coaching. These modules will cover topics important for clinical faculty and preceptors including methods of giving constructive feedback, unconscious bias, challenging student situations, building student independence and confidence, emotional intelligence, resiliency, and developing clinical student learning and evaluation plans. The clinical faculty and preceptor annual conference will be hosted at the SIUE campus using a hybrid format to facilitate attendance for all participants within HHS Region 5. Each year the program’s goal is to train 60 students in graduate nurse educator, nurse anesthesia, or nurse practitioner programs, 100 healthcare preceptors and 40 clinical faculty for each year of the project program funding. After completion of the modules and attendance at the annual conference, participants will be provided with a stipend and continuing education certificate. SIUE is in HHS Funding Region 5. The total requested for this grant is $3,813,888.63 over a period of 4 years.