Repairing the nursing workforce: Creating compassionate communities and enabling environments to enhance retention and return to work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on the mental heath and wellbeing of nurses with significantly rising levels of distress and burnout at work. In addition, there is a growing exodus of nurses from the healthcare system during the pandemic which has created a critical and unsustainable situation requiring immediate intervention. Based on the timely research our team has conducted on the causes of health worker burnout during the pandemic, we have an enhanced understanding of some promising practices and evidence-based strategies to assist in creating policy that will support compassionate communities and enabling environments to enhance retention and return to work. This project will provide specific policy directions to address the health workforce crisis unfolding across Canada by providing evidence-based solutions and strategies to enhance the wellbeing of nurses in the system and wishing to return to the system - specifically through the designing of compassionate communities and enabling environments to enhance retention and return to work. This proposed study will use both nurses' storied accounts of their experiences of workplace supports in collaboration with national nursing stakeholders to develop policy that will help repair the nursing workforce.