The Virginia Department of Health announced last week the first recipients of the Earn to Learn Nursing Education Acceleration Program grant, which aims to address critical workforce shortages for nurses across Virginia.
Rappahannock Community College was among these recipients and received $301,596.74.
The goal of the program is to transform nurse clinical education to accelerate the development of practice-ready nurse graduates, a release said. The grant was open to educational institutions or organizations that offer Virginia Board of Nursing approved nursing education programs for pre-licensure Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses.
In establishing the program, the General Assembly directed the VDH to utilize $5 million of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLRF) authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to establish the Earn to Learn program in fiscal year 2024. For the next two fiscal years, $4 million in general funds was appropriated to the program.
The Earn to Learn program provides funding to educational institutions in the commonwealth to foster collaborative clinical training arrangements between grant recipients, hospitals and health providers with the goals of increasing the number of nursing students in Virginia’s nursing programs, creating more employment opportunities for nursing students so that they are more likely to secure jobs upon completion of their training and producing more practice-ready RNs and LPNs to enhance RN and LPN retention in Virginia.
Students participating in the program will be placed at partner clinical sites to receive paid, hands-on training and mentorship that complements their academic studies. This pay enables students to earn a wage comparable to their current level of practice while training to obtain a higher certification level.
The Earn to Learn model is based on a growing body of evidence that suggests better workforce program outcomes come from programs that incorporate hands-on, work-based trainings alongside academic engagement and include access to one-on-one career navigation assistance and other wraparound services.
The institutions awarded this grant are expected to provide coordinated educational training, paid clinical experience and mentorship for RN and/or LPN students; routinely collect data on participant skill acquisition and post-graduation employment readiness, employer satisfaction, nursing shortages among clinical sites, increased RN and/or LNP enrollments at participating schools; and participate in technical assistance/cohort activities hosted by the VDH.