Practice and academic nurse educators: finding common ground

Two university-based schools of nursing and two healthcare regions, supported by a nurses' union, have formed an intersectoral collaboration to develop a practice educator curriculum. The curriculum is designed to increase educator capacity and practice-academic relationships. This article describes the preliminary groundwork among intersectoral partners. Practice and academic educators do not always recognize each others' expertise or share resources effectively. An online survey and focus groups were conducted to identify educators' similar successes and challenges, their perspectives of key criteria necessary to establish practice-academic collaborations and learning environments, and intent to leave. The findings revealed many similarities across sectors, although practice and academic educators had different foci or perspectives that will need to be bridged by the collaboration. Strategies are suggested to maximize educators' commonalities, provide better supports to minimize intent to leave, and ensure sustainability.