The RPNF is pleased and proud to take under its wing the First National Scholarship by becoming the official home of the John Alex Crawford Scholarship to support all Registered Psychiatric Nurses in Canada who wish to pursue Masters or Doctoral studies that are directly related to any of the four domains of psychiatric nursing practice.
John graduated from a Saskatchewan Psychiatric Nursing Diploma program in 1967. From then on he dedicated his professional life to psychiatric nursing. In 1977 he Chaired an inter-provincial group of Registered Psychiatric Nurses who developed the first ever National Psychiatric Standards for psychiatric nursing practice in Canada. These standards,with revisions, have been used by the profession of psychiatric nursing in Canada from 1979 to 2009.
After graduating John moved to BC in 1974 to teach in the psychiatric nursing education program at the BC Institute of Technology. He was a psychiatric nursing educator, practitioner, administrator and researcher until his death in 2004. At the time of hi passing, he had achieved candidacy as a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education at the University of BC. John would be so pleased to know that the profession now has three baccalaureate programs in psychiatric nursing and that a Master’s program commenced at Brandon University in January 2011.
Although John died in 2004, his dream is becoming a reality and a scholarship in his name has been established by the Registered Psychiatric Nurses Foundation Inc. of Manitoba.
John Alex Crawford
