Colleagues in Caring: Regional Collaboratives for Nursing Work Force Development was a national program to streamline the nursing education system and increase the capacity and attractiveness of the nursing profession.

In October 1994, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Board of Trustees authorized a total of up to $4 million for the program; it made an additional authorization of up to $3 million in 1998. The program concluded in June 2003.

The program supported 23 statewide and multi-county consortiums or collaboratives that worked on a regional basis to: (1) give nurses greater educational and career mobility; (2) align the supply of nurses more closely with marketplace demand; (3) develop programs to recruit and retain nurses; and (4) affect public policy on nursing education and workforce issues.

Key Results

• Project collaboratives developed programs and strategies to recruit new nurses and retain veterans.
• Collaboratives implemented data collection and analysis systems that clarify the dimensions and ramifications of the nation's nursing shortage and help the profession and policymakers prepare for the future.
• Collaboratives developed and implemented plans that remove barriers to educational mobility and make it easier for nurses to enhance their skills and caregiving expertise.
• Previously fragmented segments of the nursing community joined forces to address nursing education and workforce issues and to advocate for public policy.
• Eight Colleagues in Caring projects created formal, ongoing statewide structures to continue generating nursing workforce data and pursuing public policy change based on that data.

Program Administration
To oversee the projects, RWJF established the Colleagues in Caring national program office at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Washington and selected Mary F. Rapson, Ph.D., R.N.—a recognized expert in strategies for expanding access to nursing education—to direct the program.