Nicholas Giordano, PhD, RN
ATLANTA – Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing has been awarded a $2.28 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to support the COVID-19 era health workforce with high-quality training to promote resiliency and mitigate burnout among current and future clinicians.
The three-year grant will fund Atlanta’s Resiliency Resource for frontline Workers (ARROW), an initiative to leverage academic-practice partnerships and engage stakeholders in a sustainable and scalable series of interventions to promote mindfulness trainings for the front-line workforce.
ARROW will support 310 front-line workers through evidence-based mindfulness approaches focused on resiliency, compassion, and spiritual health.
“While our work does not address the many systemic and structural drivers of burnout, our interdisciplinary ARROW team is shifting cultural norms on how burnout is assessed and addressed among peers working on the frontlines of the ongoing pandemic. This program will offer comprehensive resources for resiliency enrichment, mindfulness training, and professional development for both practicing and student health professionals, staff, and public safety personnel,” said Nicholas A. Giordano, director of ARROW and Assistant Professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.
ARROW is facilitated by partnerships with Grady Health System, Emory University, and Emory Health System Police and Public Safety Departments. In this partnership, ARROW team members will introduce front line workers to evidence-based mindfulness approaches, support advocates within their workplaces to become mindfulness coaches using a train the trainer approach and retool interdisciplinary course offerings at Emory to build resiliency and strengthen resolve among front-line workers, particularly across medically underserved communities in Atlanta. ARROW will bolster, and complement, existing peer support and system wide resources at our practice partners’ organizations.
“Grady’s participation in the ARROW program comes at a perfect time to enhance our existing efforts to support frontline staff as they cope with the complexities and challenges of today’s healthcare environment. This partnership with the Emory School of Nursing will benefit us now and in the future,” said Michelle Wallace, Chief Nursing Officer, Grady Health System.
Another core component of ARROW is implementing a scalable curriculum which aims to empower clinicians in training to develop and apply the skills needed to mitigate burnout they themselves, or their peers, may experience in their future work. Collectively, ARROW is the product of faculty content experts and staff from not only the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, but also The School of Medicine, Rollins School for Public Health, and Spiritual Health within the Woodruff Health Science Center.
“Resiliency interventions will expose and empower front-line workers to help alleviate drivers of burnout that have been exacerbated during the pandemic,” said Linda McCauley, dean of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. “This work is critically important to our health care workforce and will provide sustained impact for future generations of care providers.”