| Course | NURS 3021 Professional Nurses as Change Agents |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 3 |
| Paper type | Goal statement |
| Length | About 750 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 3021 Week 3
Change Agent Goal Statement: Bringing Night Aides' Knowledge Into Resident Care-Plan Meetings
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 3021: Professional Nurses as Change Agents
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Change Agent Goal Statement: Bringing Night Aides' Knowledge Into Resident Care-Plan Meetings
Section 1: Professional Goal
I am a composite charge nurse on nights in a 96-bed long-term care facility. My professional goal is one sentence: by the end of this quarter, I will propose to the director of nursing a written overnight input form that lets night nursing assistants contribute to each resident's quarterly care-plan meeting.
The change behind the goal comes from a gap I see every week. Care-plan meetings are held at 10:00 a.m., when night aides are asleep. Night aides know things the day team does not see: which residents are awake and wandering at 3:00 a.m., who is incontinent overnight, who refuses turning, who calls out. Federal rules require that the care plan be developed by an interdisciplinary team that includes a nurse aide with responsibility for the resident (Comprehensive Person-Centered Care Planning, 42 C.F.R. § 483.21, 2024), yet the aide who is responsible for the resident's nights is almost never the aide in the room.
Section 2: Supporting Goals
Each supporting goal is written in SMART form, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, with its own measure, date, and the person whose agreement it needs.
Goal 2a. By week 5, ask at least 8 of the 12 regular night aides what they would want the day team to know about their residents, and record their answers. Measure: number of aides consulted. Agreement needed: none; this is my own step.
Goal 2b. By week 7, draft a one-page overnight input form with no more than six items, based on what the aides said. Measure: draft completed and reviewed by two night aides. Agreement needed: the two aides who review it.
Goal 2c. By week 9, ask the minimum data set coordinator, who schedules the meetings, whether completed forms could be placed in the meeting packet. Measure: a yes, a no, or a condition. Agreement needed: the coordinator.
Goal 2d. By week 11, present the form and a 60-day trial plan to the director of nursing. Measure: a decision on the trial. Agreement needed: the director of nursing.
Section 3: Academic Goals
The change connects to two domains of the AACN Essentials by name. Domain 6, Interprofessional Partnerships, applies because the form creates a channel between night aides, day nurses, the coordinator, and the care-planning team. Domain 5, Quality and Safety, applies because night information, such as falls risk at 3:00 a.m., directly affects safety plans (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2021). My academic goal for the quarter is to complete this course's proposal assignments using this change as the case, so that each assignment moves the real proposal forward.
Section 4: Barriers
Two barriers are named. The first is time on the night shift. Aides already have full assignments, and a form that takes more than a few minutes will not be completed; the form therefore has six items and will be completed during the quietest hour, around 4:00 a.m. The second is the meeting scheduler's workload. The coordinator already assembles packets for many residents each week, and adding a document may be refused. A study of information exchange in long-term care found that aides mostly shared information orally and lacked practical access to written care documents, and that formal systems did not support their oral exchange (Caspar et al., 2016). The proposal must fit the formal system without adding significant work for the coordinator.
A third barrier is less visible: the habit, on both shifts, of treating night observations as informal. Day staff are used to hearing about nights in passing at report, and night aides are used to not being asked. A form alone will not change that. The plan therefore includes a small signal of value that costs nothing: after each care-plan meeting in the trial, the charge nurse on days will tell the night aide who completed the form one thing the team changed because of it. If that feedback does not happen, I expect completion to fall within a month, as it has for other forms on the unit that nobody read.
Section 5: Professional Identity
For 7 years, I have been the person who absorbs routines that do not work, working around the meeting schedule by leaving notes that may or may not be read. This quarter I want to become someone who proposes changes instead. The goal statement above is the first document I have written that asks for a change rather than explains why one cannot happen.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.
Caspar, S., Ratner, P. A., Phinney, A., & MacKinnon, K. (2016). The influence of organizational systems on information exchange in long-term care facilities: An institutional ethnography. Qualitative Health Research, 26(7), 951-965. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315619893
Comprehensive Person-Centered Care Planning, 42 C.F.R. § 483.21 (2024).
Reading the NURS 3021 Week 3 instructions
The third NURS 3021 week commonly asks for a goal statement using a template with sections for professional, supporting and academic goals, barriers and professional identity. You write a specific, checkable professional goal, break it into supporting goals with dates, link academic goals to the program, name barriers and responses, and reflect on identity. Faculty grade each section against its heading. Cite a goal-setting framework in APA 7 if the template asks. The goal can be tied to a change project you will develop in later weeks. Measurable verbs and dates make goals checkable. NURS 3021 faculty want each supporting goal given a date and each barrier paired with a response you could carry out.
Inside the NURS 3021 Week 3 example
Five labeled template sections across roughly three pages, with a title page and a short reference list. The professional goal is stated as one sentence with a verb, an object and a date: propose an overnight input form for resident care-plan meetings to the director of nursing before the quarter ends. Supporting goals follow in SMART form, each carrying its own measure, such as the number of night aides consulted before the draft goes forward. An academic section links the change to two program outcomes by name rather than by paraphrase. A barriers section names time on the night shift and the meeting scheduler's workload. The final section on professional identity is brief, a paragraph on moving from charge nurse to someone who proposes rather than absorbs routines.
Where the marks sit in the NURS 3021 Week 3 rubric
Templated goal work is marked section by section, and the loss usually comes from goals nobody could check. A professional goal phrased as becoming a better leader leaves the measurability row with nothing to measure, while a goal with a date and an approver earns it outright. Many sections also weigh alignment, meaning whether goals connect to named program outcomes; a sentence claiming the program will help does not count as alignment. The barriers section is often scored on whether each barrier meets a matching strategy, so a list of obstacles with no answers reads as unfinished. The identity section tends to be weighted lightly, but a section left at two sentences still costs its share. APA applies to the title page and any cited framework, including the source for SMART criteria.
NURS 3021 Week 3 help from the desk
Goal statements lose points when the professional goal is to become a better leader, which no one can check. Write a goal with an action, a product and a date. Another common gap is supporting goals that repeat the main goal. Break it into steps. Writers also leave barriers vague, such as time. Name the barrier and a response. Avoid merging template sections; each heading is graded. Tie academic goals to specific courses. Keep the identity section about your role, not general nursing values. Close with the first step and its date. Writers also forget the aides' own voice, which the whole goal depends on. Plan how you will ask them.
Get a NURS 3021 Week 3 example written to your instructions
Upload the goal template your section issued for Week 3 with its rubric; what returns is a NURS 3021 change agent goal statement with every labeled section filled to proportion. First one free, 24 to 48 hours. The sample's goals follow a composite charge nurse; the dates, approvers and outcomes in yours come from your own unit and program.
More NURS 3021 papers and BSN samples
- NURS 3021 Week 1: Professional Stance Post
- NURS 3021 Week 2: Change Agency Post
- NURS 3021 Week 4: Change Theory Discussion
- NURS 3021 Week 5: Practice Problem Analysis
- NURS 3021 Week 6: Unit Change Proposal
- NURS 3021 Week 7: Stakeholder Buy-In Analysis
- NURS 3021 Week 8: Barrier Rebuttal Thread
- NURS 3021 Week 9: Sustaining Change Reflection
- NURS 3021 Week 10: Integrated Change Synthesis
- NURS 3021 Week 11: Final Proposal and Reflection
- NURS 3025 Week 3: Findings Language Post
- NURS 4300 Week 3: Capstone Search Strategy
- NURS 3030 Week 3: Cultural Humility Thread
- NURS 4212 Week 3: Community Demographics Section
NURS 3021 Week 3 questions, answered
How specific should the professional goal be?
Specific enough that someone else could say whether it happened. The example names the action, the document, the approver and the deadline in one sentence. That precision is what the measurability row usually looks for. A goal such as growing as a leader may be sincere, but it gives the rubric no observable result, and the supporting goals beneath it have nothing to organize around.
Should the goal statement mention a specific change project?
When the course is about change agency, a concrete project gives the goals a spine. The example commits to proposing overnight input for care-plan meetings, which lets every supporting goal describe a step toward that proposal. Sections that want broader career goals can still be served, since the project sits inside a longer arc toward an educator role in the closing section.
Are citations expected in a goal statement?
Often one or two, and they have a job. The example cites the SMART framework where it shapes the supporting goals, and one source on professional role development in the identity section. A goal statement with no sources can still score well where the rubric does not ask for them, but citing the framework behind the goal format costs little and answers an obvious question.
Where can I find a free NURS 3021 Week 3 sample paper?
The night aides input form goal statement is reproduced here with the one-sentence goal, dated supporting goals, academic goals, barriers and professional identity.
What is the professional goal in NURS 3021 Week 3?
To propose a written overnight input form so night nursing assistants can contribute to care plan meetings, before the quarter closes.