What is the Children’s Nursing Workforce Observatory project?

The Children’s Nursing Educator Forum exists to sustain and grow the community of practice of children’s nursing educators in southern and east Africa. Since 2016, members of this community, co-ordinated by the Unit, have been sharing information about training programmes in the region. 

In 2020, this information moved to the Open Science Framework as part of a collaborative initiative to establish the Africa Children’s Nursing Workforce Observatory, making the work of children’s nursing educators in Africa visible. 

The purpose of this observatory is to produce a comprehensive picture of the children’s nursing workforce across the region of Sub-Saharan African countries training children’s nurses, and to communicate this information to national stakeholders to inform the development of national workforce strategies and training plans.

Each year, the Unit leads the process of data gathering which generates the following resources: 

• An annual Children’s Nursing Training Activity Report which provides a summary of key insights from the past years data collection. For the latest report click here and for past reports click here.
• A live country level Dashboard which provides data about the programmes available in country, filterable by institution and year, and alongside available child health indicators.
• The African Children’s Nursing Educators Forum Directory which presents available data in an accessible format for funders, employers and potential students to find information about programmes.

If you would like to add information about a children’s nursing training programme in Africa you can do so by connecting with Beatrix Callard (beatrix.callard@uct,ac,za).

This project has been made possible through generous support from the VITOL Foundation and the ELMA Foundation.