Lynn Nelson, Capital Region ESD 113’s Senior Director of Health Services and Integrated Student Support, has been elected President-Elect of the National Association of School Nurses.
“It’s a huge honor, of course,” says Nelson. “But also, a little scary. I’ve been preparing my whole career for it without knowing it.”
Nelson has been a member of NASN for 25 years. Concurrently, she was the School Nurse Organization of Washington Legislative Chair for eight years and was Washington State’s representation on the NASN Board of Directors for four years, where she chaired NASN’s Ethics Advisory and Advocacy and Membership Strategic Goal Committees. Some of her other health policy work includes serving a six-year term on the Washington State Nurses Association Legislative and Health Policy Council.
She will spend two years as the President-Elect, assisting the current president. In that time, she will take on leadership opportunities such as serving as NASN’s liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on School Health and working on much of the media side.
“My goal is that every child and every school have access to the same quality and quantity of school health services, and in particular school nursing services,” said Nelson. “My focus areas are both equity and access for kids and school nurse workforce retention and recruitment issues. Those are things I’ve worked on throughout my career at the regional and state level. It’s fun to think about taking that to the national level.”
