A blog is born.

Five years ago, I attended a blog writing workshop at the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) annual conference. It was led by Margaret Cellucci, the former director of communications for NASN. The hands-on workshop was a primer on blogging and included an assignment that the participants needed to submit a blog post about their conference experience before the end of the event. That is how The Relentless School Nurse blog was born. Five years, 818 blog posts, and almost 400,000 views later, I can say with confidence that school nursing is a vibrant and innovative specialty practice.

Amplifying the voice of school nursing.

My aim has been to amplify the voice of school nursing. At first, I focused on sharing stories from my health office. But soon I wanted to spotlight school nurses from around the country who were doing amazing things but did not have a national platform to share their experiences. As my readership grew, so did my reach and within a short time, I was highlighting school nurses from coast to coast.

To tell our own stories—not to boast but to educate.

Recognition in school nursing, like in most nursing, has been hard-fought, both within our own walls and outside as well. So many school nurses have said to me, “I don’t like to brag or boast about what I do,” when asked if they would contribute a guest blog. When I frame the request as a way to educate people about our role, there is more acceptance and acknowledgment that we do need to tell our own stories. I always explain that if we do not control the narrative, others who are not school nurses will define who we are and what we do.

Covid brought new urgency and visibility.

I have had the honor to speak to groups of school nurses about the importance of sharing their work with a broader audience. Like in most nursing, we do a fantastic job of speaking to each other. Within our own specialties we are adept at inward facing. What we have not been as skilled in is sharing our value beyond our nursing specialties or outward facing. COVID changed that dynamic. With all of the loss, stress, angst, and intolerable working conditions, COVID changed the narrative around the urgency of protecting the nursing workforce.

The definition of who was a frontline nurse in COVID also includes school nurses. We were tasked with protecting our nation’s children as schools reopened with very few protective measures. During the pandemic, school nursing stories from our health offices were often headlines in the national news. Suddenly what had been a hidden health care system was front and center as the battle against Covid moved into the schools.

Be relentless in your practice.

Finding our voices in nursing and in school nursing was never more important than during COVID. There are more than 4 million nurses in our country. It should have not taken a pandemic for the nation to understand the importance and impact of nurses, but here we are. Let’s leverage our numbers, our contributions, and our importance in all aspects of nursing practice. As I remind the readers of my blog:

“Be Relentless in Your Practice, Whatever it is…”

Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FAAN, is a blogger, a school nurse in Camden, New Jersey, and the clinical coordinator for Rutgers-Camden Nursing school nurse MSN Program. She also serves on the board of directors for the National Association of School Nurses as the director for New Jersey.