Other Titles
Workshop
Other Titles
Sigma UN Representatives Workshop
Abstract
Nurses encounter ethical dilemmas daily in clinical, community, and cross-cultural care settings. Relational ethics provides a guiding foundation for ethical nursing practice by emphasizing human connection, mutual respect, and shared meaning rather than rules, duties, or procedural norms alone. This workshop examines how relational ethics operates across borders, highlighting how nurses adapt their communication strategies, clinical judgment, and ethical reasoning to support individuals whose cultural values, histories, and expectations of care differ from their own. By framing ethics as relational rather than universal, the session positions relational safety as an essential precursor to ethical decision-making and professional accountability.
The workshop focuses on environments where resource limitations, cultural dissonance, trauma exposure, and dynamic health systems heighten ethical tensions. Participants will engage with realistic scenarios and structured activities designed to cultivate interpretive judgment, relational presence, and moral imagination. Scenario-based breakout stations will simulate ethically complex encounters, enabling participants to practice culturally responsive communication, psychological safety, boundary-setting, and rapid ethical appraisal. Guided debriefing and facilitated dialogue will help learners connect these experiences to their own practice settings.
Intended outcomes include the development of relational competencies that enable nurses to foster trust, emotional security, and respectful communication across diverse contexts. Participants will explore the embodied skills required for ethical relational practice, including listening presence, awareness of body language, and cultural sensitivity. By applying relational and psychological safety principles, nurses will learn to create spaces where individuals can share concerns, express vulnerabilities, and engage without fear of harm. Ultimately, this workshop equips nurses with strategies to strengthen ethical comportment and relational competence, positioning them to influence ethical care and advance culturally responsive practice locally and globally.
Notes
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Reference list included in attached slide deck.
Sigma Membership
Rho Theta
Type
Presentation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Expert Opinion (nationally/internationally recognized)
Research Approach
N/A
Keywords:
Ethics, Global Leadership, Sustainable Development Goals, Global Health Issues and Ethics, Nursing Ethics
Recommended Citation
Benton-Lee, Jitana P.; Ouner, Jerry John; Staley, Amy Beth; Tolarba, Jasper Erwin; Yuen, Regina; O'Connor, Siobhan; and McArdle, Charlotte, "Nursing Beyond Borders: Ethics, Trust, and Relational Safety in Global Practice" (2026). International Nursing Research Congress (INRC). 219.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/inrc/2026/presentations_2026/219
Conference Name
37th International Nursing Research Congress
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Conference Year
2026
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record. All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository. All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
Abstract Review Only: Reviewed by Event Host
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2026-08-26
Nursing Beyond Borders: Ethics, Trust, and Relational Safety in Global Practice
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nurses encounter ethical dilemmas daily in clinical, community, and cross-cultural care settings. Relational ethics provides a guiding foundation for ethical nursing practice by emphasizing human connection, mutual respect, and shared meaning rather than rules, duties, or procedural norms alone. This workshop examines how relational ethics operates across borders, highlighting how nurses adapt their communication strategies, clinical judgment, and ethical reasoning to support individuals whose cultural values, histories, and expectations of care differ from their own. By framing ethics as relational rather than universal, the session positions relational safety as an essential precursor to ethical decision-making and professional accountability.
The workshop focuses on environments where resource limitations, cultural dissonance, trauma exposure, and dynamic health systems heighten ethical tensions. Participants will engage with realistic scenarios and structured activities designed to cultivate interpretive judgment, relational presence, and moral imagination. Scenario-based breakout stations will simulate ethically complex encounters, enabling participants to practice culturally responsive communication, psychological safety, boundary-setting, and rapid ethical appraisal. Guided debriefing and facilitated dialogue will help learners connect these experiences to their own practice settings.
Intended outcomes include the development of relational competencies that enable nurses to foster trust, emotional security, and respectful communication across diverse contexts. Participants will explore the embodied skills required for ethical relational practice, including listening presence, awareness of body language, and cultural sensitivity. By applying relational and psychological safety principles, nurses will learn to create spaces where individuals can share concerns, express vulnerabilities, and engage without fear of harm. Ultimately, this workshop equips nurses with strategies to strengthen ethical comportment and relational competence, positioning them to influence ethical care and advance culturally responsive practice locally and globally.
Description
Workshop Summary: Ethical nursing practice increasingly unfolds across cultural, political, and geographic borders, requiring nurses to navigate trust-building, communication barriers, and unfamiliar moral landscapes. Relational ethics offers a framework for understanding how nurses create, sustain, and protect trust and relational safety in these complex environments. Through realistic scenarios, case studies, and guided reflection, participants will examine how relational ethics informs ethical decision-making and supports interpersonal presence in humanitarian and cross-cultural care settings.
The workshop demonstrates how nurses translate ethical principles into action by adapting their communication and relational skills to meet the needs of diverse populations and rapidly evolving circumstances. Attendees will explore how relational ethics equips nurses to recognize power dynamics, reduce relational risk, and establish psychological and emotional safety as prerequisites for ethical practice. By linking nursing practice to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), the session highlights nursing’s global responsibility and influence. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of the relational competencies required for culturally responsive practice and the vital role nurses play in shaping ethical care across borders.
Workshop Objectives:
1. Identify and articulate relational and ethical principles relevant to cross-cultural and global nursing practice, including how relational and psychological safety shape communication, trust, and the patient experience.
2. Analyze system-level and contextual factors (including cultural norms, organizational structures, and geopolitical influences) that affect ethical nursing practice and patient relationships in international and cross-border environments.
3. Apply a relational ethics framework to clinical and humanitarian scenarios to strengthen ethical decision-making, collaborative partnerships, and care planning, integrating elements of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 16 into practice.
Workshop Learning Strategies:
1. Interactive case-study analysis featuring culturally diverse and ethically complex scenarios that require participants to identify relational and ethical principles, evaluate contextual variables, and propose relationally safe responses.
2. Cross-cultural communication role-plays and scenario-based breakout stations enabling participants to practice boundary-setting, psychological safety techniques, and collaborative dialogue while receiving feedback on relational comportment and ethical reasoning.
3. Guided reflective mapping exercises in which participants examine their own communication assumptions, assess how global and system-level forces shape clinical encounters, and integrate SDG 3 and SDG 16 concepts into actionable strategies for ethical nursing practice.