Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, the need for increased access to abortion care and for more abortion providers was made clear. It has long been hypothesized that we could rapidly expand the abortion providing workforce by investing in Nursing. The University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing has been working on this challenge through the development of the Abortion Care Training Incubator for New Scholars (ACTIONS) program. Originally conceptualized at the University of California, San Francisco, to support nurse scholars in research pursuing abortion and sexual/reproductive health care, UW ACTIONS is being developed to meet the need for innovation in clinical training and supporting the abortion care workforce.
This new expansion at UW will be in partnership with the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC) and midwifery faculty colleagues, as well as community stakeholder collaborations with Black Midwifery Fellowship, Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Fellowship in Family Planning, the Training in Early Abortion for Comprehensive Healthcare (TEACH) program and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. This first year has served as a planning year to develop relationships, policies, and procedures, as well as mission, vision, and values aligned with all consortium partners. The UW School of Nursing faculty had already approved a postgraduate certificate that would embed abortion training and skills in asynchronous, widely available content for existing clinicians, with strong support and resources for additional training opportunities and transdisciplinary collaboration.