Designing Environments of Care: Nursing Leadership and Healing Practice in Global Advocacy Systems

Discrimination and violence against women and girls continue to rise globally, and the advocacy spaces confronting these crises are themselves sites of emotional intensity, trauma exposure, and burnout. This quality improvement report describes a nursing-led initiative to cocreate environments of care within the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Forum, a nongovernmental advocacy space that connects civil society and grassroots activists to the official United Nations CSW, one of the world's largest gatherings on gender equality worldwide. In partnership with NGO CSW Forum leaders and community healers, nurses designed and implemented a two-phase restoration initiative that offered respite, somatic regulation, and relational support for delegates and organizers. Guided by Healing Justice, Human Caring Theory, and Human-Centered Leadership frameworks, the project elevates nursing's role as social architects for caring spaces in high-intensity systems and settings. Using participatory codesign principles and value-oriented relationship building, the initiative engaged more than 100 participants over 2 weeks, with feedback highlighting experiences of calm, connection, and renewed capacity to continue advocacy work. Executive leaders rated the initiative as highly valuable and integrated it into the formal forum structure. This case illustrates how nurses can lead care-centered design in global advocacy contexts, using power-with partnerships to address burnout, sustain participation, and model environments of care adaptable across health and social systems.