When an institution dies. Nursing's role in closing a facility

1. This article documents the development of a nursing role to support the staff and faculty of a state residential school for adolescents during closure of that institution. 2. The process of institutional closure resulted in increased ambiguity and need to redefine social expectations and responsibilities. Supportive nursing intervention facilitated the transition. 3. Theory and intervention associated with loss through death and dying can be appropriately adapted for use in nursing intervention during loss experienced with organizational death and institutional closure. 4. Because the meaning and experience of loss during institutional closure involves everyone and does not occur in a uniform or linear manner, nurses' roles must be flexible, responsive to contextual change, and introspective, as well as analytical and supportive.