Practice Resources
Below is a listing of SPN practice resources designed to assist in establishing best practices and standards of care within the pediatric patient population.
Certification Review
The Pediatric Nursing Certification Review learning materials are aligned with the newly released PNCB CPN® Exam Blueprint and the ANCC Pediatric Certification. They provide the latest information on the pediatric nursing field and best practices to help ensure that you’re continuing to provide the highest level of patient satisfaction and care to patients and their families.
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Core Competencies
Access pre-licensure and pediatric nurse residency program core competencies developed by SPN.
Disease Prevention Course
This course is designed to provide the pediatric nurse with disease prevention education and strategies to partner with the patient and family. The modules provide the pediatric RN with nursing interventions they can incorporate into their daily practice.
Position Statements
Produced by SPN to assist in establishing best practices and standards of care within the pediatric patient population.
Pediatric Fellowship Course
The Pediatric Fellowship is designed to help transition nurses from adult health nursing to the pediatric specialty through in-depth education focused on topics that are critical to our unique specialty. This online course is broken down into 18 modules, offering 7.4 contact hours.
Quick Reference Guides
SPN has developed two series of Quick Reference Guides, designed to provide an overview of pediatric conditions and best practices to ensure that you're ready to provide the highest quality of care to your patients and their families in these situations.
Toolkits
Find the tools you need to start a research or evidence-based practice project, or to learn more about child advocacy.
Transition of Pediatric Patients into Adult Care
Utilize SPN-developed resources to help you lead the transition of adolescents and emerging adults (AEA) from pediatric to adult care, especially those with disabilities and/or special health care needs.
SPN Informational Paper: Disaster Management for Children and Families (2020)
The Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) recognizes the significant impact of natural disasters on children, families, nurses and other professional health care providers who experience these catastrophic events. In 2017, for example, 122 countries reported 318 natural disasters that caused the death of more than 9,503 people, created 96 million victims and resulted in $314 billion in damages. An alarming trend is the rise in school shootings with multiple casualties (Katsiyannis, Whitford and Ennis, 2018).
Click here to read the informational paper
SPN Informational Paper: Pediatric Bill of Rights (2021)
The Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) recognizes that pediatric health care should be child-and family-centered and delivered in a way that is acceptable to patients, families, and healthcare providers (Society of Pediatric Nurses, 2008). The expectation is that pediatric nurses, patients, families/legal guardians, and other healthcare providers will gain knowledge from this Informational Paper and consider incorporating its premises in all healthcare settings across the continuum of care, thereby enhancing the child- and family-centered environment of care. Utilizing this information on pediatric rights demonstrates advocacy, which is an important component of standards of practice.
Click here to read the informational paper
SPN Informational Paper: School Start Times for Adolescents (2021)
The Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) recognizes that the indiscriminate functions of sleep, namely its role in facilitating neural reorganization, repair, and metabolic clearance, are essential and necessary elements of healthy brain development, physiologic and executive functioning, and emotional regulation. Adolescents, ages 13 to 18 years, require 8 to 10 hours per 24 hours of sleep on a regular basis to promote optimal health (Paruthi et al., 2016). Regular attainment of the recommended hours of sleep is associated with better health outcomes among pediatric populations, including improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and physical health.
Click here to read the informational paper
SPN Informational Paper: Immunizations (2022)
Immunization received increased attention in 2020 due to the global pandemic and the multiple vaccinations becoming approved to prevent COVID-19. Long before this current public health crisis, pediatric immunization has been a public health priority. The effectiveness of this public health campaign is reflected in the low rates of vaccine preventable diseases. Immunization is a complex process with intricate schedules 4 that can be challenging for highly trained nurses and other health care providers. Social, economic, and physical costs, such as lost time at work and missed school days, as well as gaps in sustainability, continue within the ever-changing health care environment,1,2 leaving much work to achieve optimal immunization levels.