In alignment with the school’s mission of providing accessible nurse-midwifery and nurse practitioner education to prepare competent, entrepreneurial, ethical, and compassionate leaders in primary care to serve all individuals with an emphasis on women and families in diverse, rural, and underserved populations, Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is excited to offer its new course, “Introduction to Cultural Safety.”
As our country continues to face racism and discrimination, FNU remains committed to taking a stand for diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and antiracism for marginalized populations. To meet this time of crisis, FNU is taking a systemic approach to thread DEI and anti-racism throughout the university. This course is only a small part of the work being done to actively expand institutional capacity for DEI and anti-racism work.
“The focus of the Introduction to Cultural Safety is on Native Americans, but the tenets can be applied to all populations,” Dr. Erin Tenney, the creator of the course, said. “In this course, we introduce the concept of cultural safety by centering on the Indigenous patient experience and learning to listen as the patient defines what safe care is.”
By the end of the Introduction to Cultural Safety, learners will be able to:
- Define cultural safety
- Identify the three key tenets of cultural safety
- Explain the impacts of colonization on Indigenous people in the U.S.
- Describe what culturally safe vs. culturally unsafe care may look like
- Discuss personal and systems change strategies for improving the cultural safety of care
Dr. Tenney leads the course with guest instructor Dorene Waubanewquay Day. Day is an accomplished educator, midwife, activist, singer, and artist who consults with and works within many Indigenous and other communities and organizations to help restore and design culturally safe practices. In 2020, she was selected as a Luce Indigenous Fellow.
In addition to being clinical faculty at FNU, Dr. Tenney is a certified nurse-midwife and women’s health nurse practitioner, Doulas of North America (DONA) International birth doula trainer, writer, and photographer who has worked within Indigenous health centers and communities throughout her nursing career of almost 20 years.
Dr. Tenney credits Day with being her teacher and mentor, “particularly about women’s health and traditional lifeways, birth and parenting, life, death, grief, healing and more.” Together, they have traveled to Native communities in the U.S. and Canada, providing birth and women’s health training. They also offer culturally-based doula and midwifery teachings, in addition to cultural safety training for health providers in the U.S.
Those interested in the Introduction to Cultural Safety can enroll in the course at https://ceu.catalog.instructure.com/courses/introduction2cultural-safety.
This activity is approved for 3.0 contact hour(s) of continuing education by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Activity ID# 21034781. This activity was planned in accordance with AANP Accreditation Standards and Policies
This course and the many other diversity programs at the core of FNU have been essential as Frontier works to ensure sustainability, growth, and equitable services for our students, faculty, and staff. Even more importantly, this sort of work is essential in order for the university to truly fulfill its mission, achieve the goal of a diverse nursing and midwifery workforce, and improve health outcomes, especially for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Although we have made notable progress, it is imperative that our DEI and anti-racism work continue to evolve and persist in order for us to serve our communities successfully.
To find out more about FNU’s efforts to increase diversity and improve cultural knowledge, visit our Diversity Impact Program page. FNU’s Diversity Impact Program has been active for over ten years. The program was designed to promote an inclusive learning and workforce environment at FNU, with the goal of increasing diversity in the nursing and midwifery professions by recruiting and retaining underrepresented students and employees.
Editor’s Note: This program is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $2,065,200. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).