It starts with a conversation: a community approach to creating healthy work environments

A healthy work environment is needed to retain nurses. Among the factors that contribute to a healthy work environment are collaboration and communication. Through the leadership of the Palm Healthcare Foundation, Inc., a dialogue was started among health care stakeholders in Palm Beach County, Florida, resulting in a health care work force partnership community collaboration and initiatives to address the retention of nurses. One initiative was sponsoring a "train-the-trainer" program to raise awareness and provide skills for addressing factors that could affect work relationships, including emotional intelligence, generational differences, cultural competency and health literacy, employee crisis, and horizontal violence. A 6-month program evaluation was completed by the participants. A community approach provides a means for providers and educators to address common work force issues collaboratively.