The NCCHC Nurse Advisory Council conducts regular self-evaluation and planning activities to ensure the Council remains effective, responsive, and aligned with its mission to advance excellence in correctional nursing practice. This process supports continuous quality improvement by assessing the Council’s performance, identifying emerging issues and educational needs within correctional nursing, evaluating progress toward strategic goals, and strengthening engagement and collaboration. The activity also helps ensure that the Council’s work reflects current evidence-based practice, regulatory expectations, and the evolving needs of justice-involved populations. Conducting structured evaluation and planning demonstrates accountability, promotes effective governance, and supports ANCC requirements related to ongoing program assessment, professional development, and organizational commitment to nursing excellence.
Deborah Shelton, PhD, RN, CCHP, Accredited Provider Program Director, and Sue Smith, MSN, RN, NAC Education Planner, recently completed the assessment below.
Introduction
This paper reports the process and outcomes of the Nurse Advisory Council’s self-evaluation activities over the past year and resulting education plan for 2026-27. Multiple strategies were utilized to assure input from nurse attendees, including ongoing review of conference evaluations, a learning needs survey, a round table discussion and observations of nurse-led sessions. Workforce issues were the most important topic identified by nurses followed by selected clinical skills, licensure and legal topics. Additionally, NAC received feedback on how to tailor programming to encourage nurse participation. This information was discussed within the Council and reported to NCCHC through the appropriate committees.
Background-Nurse Advisory Council (NAC)
Driven by American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC) criteria for nursing professional development activities, the NAC was established in 2012 as a stakeholder group to advise the NCCHC Approved Provider Program Director (APPD) about the professional development needs of correctional nurses and to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing professional development activities. The Council consists of correctional nurse experts representing the wide variety of roles and settings in which correctional nurses practice.
Conference Evaluations
NCCHC conducts conference evaluations for each conference. Nurses consistently represent one-third of the attendees. A mix of nurses attend conferences, but more nurses in direct care roles attend Spring Conference and more nurses in leadership roles attend in the Fall. As of Spring 2025, nurses self-identified their primary place of employment: 40% jails, 32% prisons, and 8% private practice. Years of experience in correctional health care ranged from 2 years (23%) to 10 years (45%). Over 45% of nurses were first-time attendees.
Nursing sessions maintained their ratings over time. Evaluations during the 2025-26 period rated the nursing sessions on average, 4.48 (85%), and individual nursing presenters averaged 4.51 (91%), meeting our ranking goals (>80%).
Open-ended comments were synthesized by word frequency into categories for future session topics. The recommendations from the open-ended comments from the conference evaluations by nurses were first, work culture and its impact on nurse retention; self-care/wellness- work-life balance; new nurse focused sessions- transition to practice, what is referred to as the “unknown curriculum” as opposed to skills targeting nurse practitioners or medications; and lastly, research updates with translation to practice.
Survey Methods
In accordance with the ANCC criteria for assessing the learning needs of the correctional nurses who attend NCCHC educational activities, a Learner Needs Assessment survey was designed, pilot tested, reviewed and approved by the NAC Committee in 2025. A slightly different strategy was taken for this self-evaluation. Nurses were asked to self-evaluate their personal learning needs and to evaluate the learning needs of their nursing peers. This survey was circulated to all correctional nurses in the NCCHC database.
A total of 271 responses were received and recorded. After cleaning the data, a total of 233 surveys were included in the analysis. The following themes are listed by frequency:
Top Learning Needs for Respondents
1. Mental health care: Nurses highlighted the need for training in managing mental illness, crisis intervention, and psychiatric nursing in correctional settings.
2. Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)/MOUD: Strong interest in understanding how MAT saves lives, safe prescribing practices, detox management, and continuity of care for patients with substance use disorders. Many respondents requested practical training on implementation and patient-centered approaches.
3. Legal knowledge & issues: Concerns around scope of practice, liability, PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act), and legal responsibilities.
4. Wound care: Training in specialized wound management and infection prevention strategies.
5. Infection control: Interest in disease prevention, outbreak management, and updated infection prevention practices.
6. Documentation & standards: Clear charting practices, adherence to NCCHC Standards, and improved quality assurance.
7. Team building & safety: Skills in collaboration, communication, de-escalation, and personal/staff safety.
Perceived Learning Needs for Others
1. Documentation & Charting: The #1 concern. Nurses worry about accurate, thorough, and legally sound charting to protect both staff and patients.
2. Mental Health Care: Managing patients with mental illness, crisis care, and behavioral health remain pressing needs.
3. Critical Thinking & Clinical Judgment: Emphasis on developing problem-solving skills, recognizing red flags, and making sound decisions in complex situations.
4. Wound Care: High demand for more specialized wound management training.
5. Safety: Both staff safety (handling aggressive patients, avoiding burnout) and patient safety (quality of care, risk prevention).
6. Professionalism: Concerns include maintaining boundaries, communication etiquette, and professional conduct in correctional environments.
7. Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT): Similar to identification of learning needs for themselves nurses want greater competence in MAT and detox management among others.
8. Detox management: Safe monitoring, withdrawal protocols, and avoiding complications.
9. Time management: Balancing heavy workloads and prioritizing care in a resource-limited setting.
10. Medication management & assessment skills: Accurate med administration, monitoring side effects, and sharpening core nursing assessments.
Comparison Of Two Surveys
Key similarities between the two parts of the survey suggest that mental health and MAT/detox are high-priority learning needs and may be universal, systemic challenges in correctional nursing. Wound care appears in the top five of both parts of the survey indicating a consistent skill gap. Safety and teamwork/communication concerns are reflected in both parts of the survey as well indicating a call for assistance with the cultural and environmental stressors for nurses inside correctional facilities.
Differences were also noted between the two parts of the survey. Nurses don’t see documentation as their own top need, but when thinking of colleagues, it rises to the #1 concern. This suggests documentation issues may be more noticeable when dependent upon information from peers than for themselves. Nurses listed legal responsibilities, scope, and liability as their own major concern. Yet, when asked about colleagues, this dropped away. This could reflect personal anxiety more than an observed skill gap. Nurses didn’t highlight critical thinking as their own gap, but they identified it as one of the top deficits in colleagues. Professionalism showed the same pattern. Time management was rarely listed in self-assessment, but a concern for colleagues, suggesting workload and prioritization problems are more visible externally.
In summary, self-identified learning needs lean toward clinical and technical topics while observed needs in others lean toward professional and behavioral. Together, these findings provide a sense of the dual priorities for the nursing workforce in both technical/knowledge gaps and practice/behavior gaps. Nursing learners in corrections need both specialized clinical training and professional practice development. It is not uncommon for outcomes of surveys designed in this way to yield differing perspectives between self and perceptions of others. Yet the value is in gathering a broader view of workforce needs.
Observation of Conference Sessions
Five NAC members observed nurse-led conference sessions using a semi-structured checklist designed by NAC for this purpose. Twelve sessions were observed to assess if the content level was as advertised, the topic in alignment with the NAC Education Goals, if session objectives were met, and if the presentation met professional expectations. Additional space was left open for feedback to speakers. Overall, the sessions met a high standard for presentations. Areas for improvement were minor relating to formatting of PowerPoint slides, and one session ran too long in audience discussion. Feedback was provided for presenters and into a ‘how-to-present’ session for the following conference.
Roundtable Discussion
The NAC utilized a roundtable to report the process evaluation findings to 28 nurse conference attendees and to open for feedback, discussion and input to the development of the next year’s educational plan. Participants identified workforce issues as the top priority with a lively discussion of the need for time to exchange ideas and to support Nurse Leaders. Other recommendations included:
- Practical, corrections-specific education topics that are real-world, scenario-based training tailored to correctional settings. Among topics discussed: more time was needed for deeper dives into content, discussion and exchange of ideas; simulations and interactive learning are strongly requested.
- Accessibility and affordability with cost identified as a major barrier was noted. Nurses felt “priced out” of some offerings. Discussants asked for: more free or low-cost CE opportunities, on demand/ recorded modules, and scholarships for certification and conference attendance.
- Professional development and support, specifically the need for professionalism, boundary management and communication skills for new or less experienced staff. Evidence-based strategies needing replication are mentorship, onboarding support and LPN/LVN-specific tracks. Leadership, management, and retention strategies were also raised, pointing to overall workforce development concerns.
- Feedback on NCCHC’s current programs were rated as good to great in terms of relevance, evidence base, and impact on practice, however greater application to daily practices was recommended with more diversity in speakers and expanded nurse-specific tracks at conferences.
Summary
NAC synthesized the evaluation data and formulated the Goals for 2026-27 Education Plan. These overarching goals include
- GOAL 1: Topics meet current needs identified through conference evaluations, including nursing workforce, advanced assessment and clinical diagnoses, updates in correctional nursing research, nurse educator development.
- Goal 2: Expand network of speakers: engage two early career speakers and one expert nurse speaker.
- Goal 3: Maintain quality ratings through monitoring NCCHC conference evaluation system. New speakers are being engaged, others are being mentored, and some sessions are being created by design to guide new speakers.
Correctional nursing, although a recognized specialty (ANA, 2020), has limited opportunities for peer-reviewed presentations to assure the quality of the education. Current “specialty-specific” professional development education is needed to ensure safe clinical practice.
Please send any comments or questions to Education@ncchc.org.
