The PND Program

Mission Statement

The mission of the Seneca College Practical Nursing Diploma Program is to provide career-related education and training that will enable our students to succeed in the global economy.

We strive to create an environment that emulates the caring foundations of nursing. We aspire to promote learning, creativity and innovation so that our students will have the knowledge, skill and attitude necessary to provide excellent, client-centred nursing care. We aspire to prepare graduates that respect the lived experience of people in diverse settings and use the caring relationship to assist clients to achieve their physical, emotional and spiritual health goals. We expect that students and faculty will be partners in the education process, continually developing as healers, independent critical thinkers, responsible and supportive team members, and effective leaders.

Our Purpose

To develop and provide programs and educational services that are:

• Relevant and enriching to our student's work and lives

• Focused on the workplace opportunities of the future

• Practical, interactive and flexible in time and place

• Supported by challenging academic standards

• Designed to combine technical and transferable skills

• Reinforced by opportunities for ongoing education and retraining

• Enhanced by supportive student services

Our Commitment

• First and foremost, our commitment is to our students, who are the central focus of our mission.

• We value and respond to our diverse and multicultural community.

• We work and learn together with cooperation, honesty, mutual respect and equity.

• We act both locally and globally, building strategic partnerships and international initiatives.

• We foster an entrepreneurial, innovative, empowering and creative work environment.

• We embrace change, adapt effectively to new circumstances and actively pursue new opportunities.

• We are competent, qualified, knowledgeable and accountable for our assigned responsibilities.

• We take responsibility for our continuing professional development and employability.

• We assure our financial viability through the effective and efficient use of our resources.

PND Program Goals

The graduate of the program will:

• Use nursing practice to promote the health and healing processes of individuals and families and establish caring relationships that foster trust, respect, collaboration and innovation.

• Use multiple ways of knowing and multiple sources of knowledge to inform decision-making in nursing practice.

• Be self-reflective, self-directed, accountable, creative and inquiring as a Practical Nurse and a life-long learner while striving to improve the quality of her or his dimension of practice.

• Establish caring relationships with colleagues and demonstrate the team and leadership skills required to work effectively wherever Practical Nursing is practicing.

• Support, advocate and promote the ethical standards of the nursing profession.

• Advance public policies that will promote the health of all people.

• Know and be prepared to meet the legislative requirements and the standards of the profession and be accountable to the public.

PND Philosophy

• We believe that people are holistic beings, who experience life in unique ways and this influences their relationships with others and the environment in which they live.

• We believe that people have the capacity and right to make choices about their ways of living, learning and health as well as the responsibility for the consequences of those choices.

• We believe internal and external factors impact on people’s physical, socio-cultural, psycho-spiritual, political and economic health, influencing the quality life of the individual, their significant others and the community around them.

• We believe that nurses are responsible for the development of helping relationships, and provision of competent, holistic, patient centered care. Nurses assist people, in all stages and transitions, to enhance healing, make their own choices for health, and change or cope with the environment in which they live.

• We believe that the practical nurse must be prepared to participate in many roles and settings. These roles include, but are not limited to, those of multi-disciplinary team member, primary care giver, educator, manager, consultant, advocate or political activist. Practical Nursing is practiced in a limitless number of settings including communities, homes, institutions, or wherever there is a potential for influencing the health of people.

• We believe that the Practical Nurse is individually responsible and accountable for their practice. The Practical Nurse is professionally responsible to continuously seek to improve practice through critical self-reflection and study, and add to the growing knowledge base of the profession. Practical Nurses have a social responsibility to influence and advance public policy that will contribute to the health of people now and in the future.

• We believe that nursing education is a partnership between professor and student and that both bear responsibility for creation of an environment in which learning, creativity and innovation are promoted. We value and acknowledge the diversity between people and the variety of ways of knowing. Both teacher and student must participate holistically in the education process and work to create an environment of mutual respect and trust.

• We believe that learning is a life-long process that is aimed at personal and professional growth. Learners bring valuable prior knowledge and past experiences to the learning situation and are capable of and have the right to be self-directing, to participate in and share responsibility for determining their learning needs, learning methods and for evaluating learning. Nursing knowledge is derived from an understanding of self, practice, theory and research, all of which merge together in the generation of that knowledge and in the application of that knowledge to practice.