The ICN Leadership For Change™ Programme--20 years of growing influence

The aim of this article was to present experiences from the field in the context of the International Council of Nurses' Leadership for Change™ programme, which celebrates 20 years of excellence in 2016 for developing the leadership and management capacity of nurses worldwide.

The programme was launched in 1996 in order to boost nurse participation in the healthcare policy-making process, globally, and to foster within the nursing profession the requisite skills for nurses to lobby for and assume a greater responsibility in the leadership and management of health care services.

Over the course of two decades, the programme has been implemented in cooperation between ICN, national nurses associations, the World Health Organization, Ministries of Health and a variety of donor organizations such as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and development agencies such as USAID and AUSAID. The programme has been implemented in more than 60 nations throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the Pacific Islands, to name a few regions.

This article offers an overview of the impact that certified ICN LFC nurse trainers and their colleagues have had in the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and the United States of America and is affiliated islands and the North Pacific Islands.

Twenty years of growth and empowerment are now the ongoing legacy of the ICN LFC Program, which has graduated and deployed nurse trainers around the world and achieved significant advances in the professional development of nurse leaders on an international scale.

Nurse leaders can improve the health and well-being of their nations in collaboration with consumers and other key stakeholders. Nurse leaders are critical in improving health systems, their work places and broader societal challenges through sound nursing practice, education, research and evidence-based health and social policy change.