2023 Award & Scholarship Recipients Announced
The Pediatric Nursing Certification Board celebrates your peers and future colleagues in pediatric nursing! Please enjoy getting to know this year's recipients of our award and scholarship programs and look for 2024 applications to open later this year on our awards webpage and scholarships webpage.
Each year, the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board recognizes a CPNP or PMHS who extends the reach of their role beyond regular practice activities with the Kelly Reed Advanced Practice Community Impact Award. This award honors former PNCB board member Kelly Reed, MN, RN, CPNP-PC, who passed away in 2013. Kelly demonstrated extraordinary dedication to the community in which she served.
Elizabeth Eden, MSN, RN, CPNP-PC, is a pediatric nurse practitioner for The Mayo Clinic Arizona's Radiation Oncology Department. She has spent the majority of her career working to improve the lives of children battling cancer. Elizabeth spearheaded the Go Gold Shoe Initiative in her community to raise awareness for pediatric cancer. Within a period of two months, Elizabeth launched the program through fundraising and brainstorming to collect, spray paint, and hand out gold spray-painted shoes to patients and staff. Gold is significant in the world of childhood cancer awareness, but Elizabeth’s devotion did not stop at only bringing oncologic recognition; Elizabeth strove to create a symbol of unity and belonging, determination and confidence. As she hands each patient their new gold shoes, her words are, “These are your warrior shoes, and every time you wear these, you get to walk out of your house knowing that you have a whole army of people behind you fighting for your very best life.” Elizabeth continues to transform this initiative, which has now extended into interest from major shoe brands and hospitals nationwide. In addition, people from a variety of boards, organizations, and hospitals have reached out to collaborate with Elizabeth, now joining in her goal of expanding this as a national initiative, hoping to give every child with cancer a pair of gold shoes to exemplify the united front and continual fight for a cure.
Each year, PNCB's CPN Certification Advocate Award recognizes a Certified Pediatric Nurse who is an outstanding advocate for certification at the local, hospital, regional, or national level. Recipients demonstrate excellence in promoting certification as well as other areas of pediatric nursing, such as clinical skills, family-centered care, implementing evidence-based practice, or mentoring.
Janna Berg, BSN, RN, CPN, is a registered nurse at Children’s Health in Dallas, Texas. She is a full-time member of the Clinical Resource Team float pool and has been a bedside nurse for thirty years. She is a primary preceptor for graduate nurses and is involved in the Preceptor Council. She volunteers as a Certified Pediatric Nurse Champion and encourages certification through study groups, alignment with her hospital's Certified Nurse Achievement Program, and celebrations of cookie deliveries to each newly certified nurse. Annual drawings reward certified nurses with gift cards. She uses a new theme each year to promote certification. Her efforts have boosted department certification by 21% in the last two years. Beyond her passion for CPN certification, witnessing her daughter's achievements as a pediatric nurse at the same facility are among her proudest moments.
Launched this year is PNCB's "You Belong" DEIB in Action Award. This new team-based award recognizes an employer, unit, or department that demonstrates a culture of and commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) through programs such as recruitment efforts and professional development support.
Healthy Kids Child Health Advocacy & Outreach, St. Louis Children's Hospital is making an impact on DEIB for team members and has a goal of building a team with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to enrich their program. Their leadership team is 63% Black while their entire team is 52.35% White and 47.1% of color. The percentage of Black employees has increased by 13.5% since 2018. This year 34% of their RNs were Black, and the voluntary turnover rate for this segment of their workforce was 0%. Healthy Kids intentionally focus on recruitment goals and have broadened their recruitment strategies and woven diversity questions into interviews while encouraging growth and connection among their team members. For the last three years, DEIB goals have been included as part of their performance appraisals. Monthly staff meetings have a standing agenda item titled DEI activity. Front-line staff choose an activity and share during staff meetings. Over the past two years, front-line staff have done this 23 times. One of their Managers is a trained facilitator of DEIB. Due to these efforts, Healthy Kids reports that their team is more self-aware, culturally competent, accepting of differences, and having different conversations. They are excelling in retention, trust has improved, and employees are engaged.
Also launched this year is PNCB's Investing in Pediatric Nursing Diversity RN Student Scholarship to support the education of an RN student with a passion for pediatric nursing and who identifies with an ethnically, or culturally diverse background, racial diversity, gender diversity, disability or is otherwise a member of a historically marginalized community and/or one that is underrepresented in pediatric nursing.
Kibrome M. Feleke is a first-generation college student at the University of Washington pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Nursing. Kibrome moved from Ethiopia to the US about six years ago. For the last five years, he has been working with children and families as a Family Service Specialist and Social Worker. Kibrome has worked with diverse groups of communities in Seattle, connecting communities with services and resources in areas such as healthcare, housing, childcare, food, and transportation. Kibrome is passionate about promoting health and well-being among minority communities, where he volunteered and participated in community outreach. After graduation, Kibrome is committed to advancing health promotion through education, volunteering, and community mobilization to make a positive influence in the life of families and communities.
Justin McDuffie is an accelerated BSN student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Before pursuing a nursing education, Justin spent over five years as a television journalist. During the height of the pandemic Justin decided to pivot and chase a new career dream in healthcare. He earned his CNA and began working in the Neonatal ICU. That’s where he found his true calling as a bedside nurse, caring for young patients and their families. He enjoys supporting families through their NICU journey and tries to focus on incorporating male caregivers into care. Justin hopes to share his passion for pediatrics with more men entering the profession and increasing representation of LGBTQIA+ nurses at pediatric bedsides. In the future Justin plans to earn an advanced degree and continue focusing on being a voice for his patients to the care team. He and his partner Augustus live in Raleigh. They enjoy spending time with their Goldendoodle Barnum and traveling the world together.
This year, PNCB and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) launched the Empowering Professional Diversity PNP Student Scholarship to support the education of a pediatric nurse practitioner student who identifies with an ethnically or culturally diverse background, racial diversity, gender diversity, disability or is otherwise a member of a historically marginalized community and/or one that is underrepresented in pediatric nursing.
Michaela Gabrielle Visperas Serafica is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner - Primary Care student pursuing a Master of Science in Nursing at the Yale School of Nursing. She is interested in improving primary health care for children through human-centered design, with a particular interest in urban health. She believes that primary health care and protecting vulnerable communities begins in our ways of living, from how we move and transport ourselves to the ways in which we interact and engage with our communities. Prior to beginning her studies at Yale, she received a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology and Society from UCLA. She then worked in health emergency preparedness on a county level in California, where she helped develop emergency operations plans to serve under-resourced, vulnerable communities. Currently, she is a part of an interdisciplinary research team with the goal of addressing climate change through a health care lens. She is a proud Filipina-American who hails from the Excelsior District of San Francisco, California.
Each year, PNCB and the Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) award a PNCB-certified nursing professional who is also an SPN member a joint PNCB-SPN Conference Scholarship. SPN provides complimentary conference registration, and PNCB provides a travel honorarium.
Sara-Marie Saliba, MSN, RN, CPN has been a registered nurse for five years and currently works at Children's National Hospital as a travel nurse. She is Secretary of her local Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) Northeast Florida Chapter and has served on various hospital committees and task forces. Sara-Marie is passionate about supporting underserved populations and organizes community care kit drives for her local shelter for the unhoused. In 2022, her efforts and volunteer management resulted in 11,000 items for 500 kits. "A beautiful and unique characteristic of the nursing profession is the constant opportunity to learn and grow, Sara-Marie shared. "The SPN conferences elicit discussions amongst peers and provide educational materials and tools that can be shared within one’s hospital setting." As a recent graduate student in the UNF Master of Science in Nursing Leadership and Administration program, she aspires to one day guide a healthcare team in the future.
