AFN National Conference
Virtual Conference
Advancing the Global Practice of Forensic Healthcare
November 6–7, 2025
Coming Soon!
CONFERENCE AGENDA
12:45–13:45 ET
Disasters and Forensic Nursing Roles
Presenter:
Catherine Carter-Snell, Kimberly Kasper
Summary:
Disasters such as climate-related or health-related crises are occurring more often. National and international nursing agencies have included disaster nursing as a competency and ethical requirement for all nurses. More specific competencies were developed by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) to cover each of the three main phases of a disaster—disaster planning, disaster responses, and post-disaster recovery—at the basic- and advanced-nursing levels. These competencies were more recently expanded to add a third level of disaster expertise. There is no mention of forensic nursing roles in any of these documents, and yet forensic nurses have many unique skills to contribute. These include a core knowledge of trauma-informed practice, well suited to crisis support, but also skills such as community networking, planning, injury identification and evidence preservation, infection control, and even death investigation. It is well recognized that rates of intimate partner violence and sexual assault increase significantly during disasters and often forensic services get reduced to redeploy the forensic nurses to other areas of the health response. In this presentation, the speakers will review the disaster phases and competencies created by ICN as well as the competencies and roles of forensic nurses. Using a series of case examples, they will then suggest a possible alignment between these competencies with implications for future policy, position statements, and collaboration with disaster organizations.
Continuing Education Disclosure
Purpose:
The purpose for the conference is two-fold. First, nurses, forensic nurses, and other health care providers need current, evidence-based education at the novice and the advanced level in order to promote innovative application of practice and research in the multidisciplinary work with victims of violence across the lifespan. Second, novice and expert forensic providers need opportunities to highlight and share their innovative EBP. To meet this purpose, novice and expert presenters from the U.S. and Internationally – four U.S. regions (East, Central, Mountain, Pacific/Alaska/Hawaii) and international – were chosen for this two-day conference.
Criteria for Successful Completion:
Participants will attend live on November 6 & 7, 2025. Recordings will be available one week after the live session and will be available for asynchronous viewing through February 7, 2026.
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Participants will need to attend a minimum of 90% of each presentation session that they wish to obtain credit for and complete an attestation/verification statement of attendance.
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Upon completion of live date attendance, a CE certificate for up to 12.25 contact hours will be awarded. This is commensurate with participation.
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Live and asynchronous attendees will be confirmed by combination of Zoom attendance reports and attestation statements. Completion of a post-attendance survey is also expected.
Disclosures:
There is no relevant financial disclosure with ineligible companies for any program planner or presenter involved with this activity.
The Academy of Forensic Nursing is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development with by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.