Tying into the Theme of This Year’s NLN Education Summit, the NLN Publishes a New Vision Statement

Tying into the Theme of This Year’s NLN Education Summit, the NLN Publishes a New Vision Statement

Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response & Recovery

Washington, DC — The National League for Nursing advances the focus on transforming emergency and disaster nursing education with a blueprint for change in NLN Vision Statement #26, Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.This new Vision Statement is the latest addition—and fourth in 2026—to the expanding series of NLN Vision Statements, reflecting the League’s role as the leader in nursing education.

So pressing is the need to integrate disaster and emergency nursing into nursing curricula that the National League for Nursing will focus an exploration of the theme Beyond the Storm: Reshaping Resilience & Recovery at the 2026 NLN Education Summit in Washington, DC, September 23-25. As extreme weather, natural, and human-caused disasters and public health emergencies increase in frequency, complexity, and impact, populations and health care delivery systems face grave threats. Nurses, regardless of their individual level of education, professional experience, job description or practice setting, are bound to encounter serious events at some point during their careers, making disaster-readiness a core professional responsibility.

Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery is a strategic guide for nursing programs and practice partners in integrating disaster nursing education as an essential and sustained component of nursing curricula in prelicensure programs through advanced practice and continuing professional development. The Call to Action also addresses health policymakers, accrediting bodies, regulators, and nursing organizations, urging the alignment of standards, resources and advocacy efforts with the imperative of a disaster-ready nursing workforce.

As the Vision Statement notes:

Nursing organizations, academic institutions, faculty, students, nurses, and community partners each carry a portion of that responsibility, and each must fulfill it with intention and accountability. That accountability extends to federal and state government agencies, accrediting bodies, and philanthropic partners whose sustained financial investment is a precondition for the workforce they depend on… grounded in the shared understanding that a disaster-ready nursing workforce is not built by any single institution or individual. It is built collectively, sustained structurally, and measured by the readiness of nurses to lead and respond when communities need them most.

“A prepared nursing workforce is only as strong as the systems structured to support it. Nurses must be supported before, during and after disasters, because workforce well-being is a condition of readiness, and not a separate concern. When institutions invest in organizational and system-level support that nurses need, they strengthen the workforce capacity to effectively meet the needs of individuals and communities,” said NLN Chair Yolanda VanRiel, PhD, RN, MEDSURG-BC, OCN, CNE, ANEF, FAAN, chair of the Department of Nursing, North Carolina Central University and patient placement coordinator at First Health of the Carolinas-Moore Regional Hospital.

“The commitment to keep individuals and communities in harm’s way at the center of all phases of disaster management—mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery—can be achieved through strategic and coordinated efforts when understood as a core responsibility by practicing nurses and the nursing profession as a whole. The way forward laid out by this NLN Vision Statement confirms the urgency of adapting nursing education to ensure that all nurses are fully prepared with the knowledge, skills and confidence to operate effectively, whenever and wherever needed, in disaster settings,” said NLN President and CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN.

For more information about the NLN Vision Series, visit NLN.org.

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