Violence content in nursing curricula: strategic issues and implementation

Many nurse educators today are sensitized to the importance of including content on violence and victim/survivor care in various nursing education programmes. While a survey of Ontario's schools of nursing in Canada revealed a considerable number of hours devoted to this topic, the approach is largely incidental, depending heavily on individual faculty interests. National and international initiatives to stem the tide of violence against women and children, plus the strategic role of nurses in primary care, call for curricula in which this content is addressed systematically. To achieve this goal and avoid pitfalls such as an 'add-on' approach to curriculum revision, nurse educators' needs in Ontario were addressed in a series of workshops involving collaboration between faculty, clinical preceptors and community-based experts in victim/survivor care.