{"id":240116,"date":"2026-02-03T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=240116"},"modified":"2026-03-24T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:50:24","slug":"legacy-of-advocacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/02\/legacy-of-advocacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Legacy of Advocacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond the classroom, Joy Elwell, DNP, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, FAANP \u2014 clinical professor and director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program<\/a> at the Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing \u2014 advocates for nurse practitioners\u2019 titles and scope of practice.<\/p>\n

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Joy Elwell, DNP, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, FAANP. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her inspiration stems from her mother and grandmother, and she is continuing that legacy by advocating for underserved populations and communities.<\/p>\n

“My grandmother was a suffragist, and in between raising seven children, running a farm, and raising four grandchildren, she found the time to march for the right of women to vote,\u201d says Elwell.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, Elwell\u2019s mother served on a male-dominated committee that was involved in deciding where the first computed axial tomography (CAT) scanner would be placed in New York City.<\/p>\n

The committee initially wanted it placed in a hospital serving the white upper-middle-class population. Her mother fought for it to be located in a hospital that served a broader and more diverse community. Her persistence led the committee to vote in favor of her proposal.<\/p>\n

While her family influenced her interest in advocacy, her passion for it didn\u2019t truly develop until she was in her master\u2019s program at Lehman College, City University of New York.<\/p>\n

“While completing my master\u2019s, we had a health policy assignment where we had to interview a politician. At the time, Nita Lowey was running for Congress in New York, and she lived in my county. I called her office, and we scheduled to meet at our local diner,\u201d says Elwell. \u201cHaving the ability to talk to a politician\u2014and them listening\u2014is what drove me to start advocating on a larger scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elwell became a nurse practitioner in 1994, and it was early in her career that she saw inequities in healthcare, specifically health insurance, and discrimination against nurse practitioners in terms of reimbursement and being recognized as direct care providers.<\/p>\n

Seeing those inequities firsthand, she quickly became involved in advocacy at the state level in New York, working to change legislation to improve visibility and scope of practice for nurse practitioners. When she moved to Connecticut in 2013, she continued her work through organizations such as the Connecticut Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Society (CTAPRNS), where she serves on the health policy committee.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Joy Elwell’s, DNP, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, FAANP, Florence Nightingale Advocacy Award at the CTAPRNS 50th Anniversary Conference. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CTAPRNS was established in 1975 with the mission to support Connecticut\u2019s APRNs and physicians, healthcare providers, educators, administrators, consumers, legislators, and other stakeholders in improving the quality of and access to healthcare for the state\u2019s citizens, according to their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This November, Elwell was awarded the Florence Nightingale Advocacy Award at the CTAPRNS 50th Anniversary Conference. The award is given to someone who inspires others to raise their voice and who champions nurses through advocacy. She was also the keynote speaker at the conference, presenting on the history of nurse practitioners in the United States.<\/p>\n

Last year, Elwell received the American Association of Nurse Practitioners\u2019 State Award for Excellence\u2014Advocate (Connecticut). This award honors those who have advanced the nurse practitioner role through practice, education, advocacy, research, and leadership at the national level.<\/p>\n

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Now entering her thirteenth year at the Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing, Elwell continues to advocate for the profession\u00a0<\/span>beyond\u00a0the classroom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More recently, Elwell testified at a public hearing at the State Capitol, where she advocated in support of a bill that would create a state-level graduate student loan program, offsetting the anticipated federal reductions. She spoke on behalf of the Elisabeth DeLuca School of Nursing, speaking for nursing education, research, innovation, and informatics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I was so pleased to represent UConn, UConn Nursing, and nursing education. It’s always gratifying to be able to testify for the profession and\u00a0engage\u00a0in meaningful conversations\u00a0with legislatures,” says Elwell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She encourages nurses to do the same\u2014join state and national organizations, write letters, serve on committees, join associations, and testify to advocate for yourself and your scope of practice. Most importantly, \u201cdon\u2019t be afraid,\u201d says Elwell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Nurses are in a unique position to be experts in healthcare. If you’re a nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, or nurse midwife, because of the advanced training and education that we receive in health policy and advocacy, we are in a uniquely informed position to raise our voice to advocate for healthcare consumers, for the profession, and for healthcare systems,\u201d says Elwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Improving healthcare access, systems, and legislation for underserved communities and populations has been my passion since I became a nurse practitioner.\u201d \u2013 Joy Elwell, DNP, FNP-BC, CNE, FAAN, FAANP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":240261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1877],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2655],"class_list":["post-240116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nur"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 04:06:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240116"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242859,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240116\/revisions\/242859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/240261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240116"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=240116"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=240116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}