5237.0: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 5:18 PM

Abstract #10062

Community health center Service-Learning: A model to help promote cultural competency and reduce health disparities

Learn and Serve America provides young people with opportunities to serve by connecting community service with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility. The program funds state education agencies, State Commissions on National and Community Service, schools, colleges, universities, and non-profit organizations. This paper will discuss the Americorps program of the Center for Community Health Education, Research, and Service (CCHERS), an exemplary Service-Learning model that enhances health professions student's leadership; public health knowledge base; awareness of cultural diversity; and conceptual/critical-thinking skills by providing them with service opportunities in community health centers (CHCs). It will provide an overview of the CCHERS' Americorps program, which is considered a national model. The session will delineate key components, such as services provided to CHCs that are specifically aimed at improving primary care, health education and health promotion for vulnerable populations and may ultimately help to reduce health disparities. The session will demonstrate how the CCHERS' Americorps program has evolved into a vehicle for building cooperative ventures between academic settings and community partners to provide culturally competent services aimed at reducing disparities impacting children, youth, new mothers, recent immigrants, victims of violence and the elderly. The secondary gains of the program for professional mentors, the participating CHCs and the community at large are also described. The authors will provide examples of innovative health promotion projects developed by Americorps students. They will review strategies employed to engage student participation and improve CHCs responsiveness to Americorps students ultimately effectuating a mutually beneficial collaboration.

Learning Objectives: During the session the faculty will:

1. Discuss conceptual service-learning components of community health center service and social/health promotion projects.
2. Demonstrate how community health center service-learning and social health promotion projects enhance students public health knowledge base, cultural competency, and critical-thinking skills.
3. Assess secondary gains of community health centers service-learning on professional mentors, partnership agencies, and the larger community.
4. Describe successes and pitfalls encountered in the implementation of social/health promotion project model.
5. At the conclusion of this session the participants will be able to:
• Identify opportunities for building coorpertive ventures between academic settings and community partners.
• Establish innovative service learning models which enhance student leadership, build awareness of current health disparities, and develop mechanisms for ameliorating them.
• Replicate key components of this model in community settings currently impacted by health disparities.

Keywords: Community-Based Health Promotion, Professional Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Center for Community Health Education, Research and Service (CCHERS)
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

The 128th Annual Meeting of APHA