A northwestern metropolitan university has embarked on a three-year community service-learning project to assist residents of an at-risk neighborhood to revitalize that community. The goals of this project are to improve access to available human services, increase crime prevention activities among youth and expand the capacity for community organization. This is supported in part by a Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over the last year groups of senior community health nursing students have worked collaboratively with local residents, agencies and other university students. The students along with their partners, conducted comprehensive health assessments, planned, implemented and evaluated projects designed to reduce the incidence of unsupervised children in the area. Additionally they designed interventions to improve access to health care and provided services focused on developing health lifestyles for school-age youth. This presentation will include a discussion of service-learning as a strategy to enhance academic and service partnerships, challenges involved in conducting service-learning activities in community agencies with multiple partners, and finally, present strategies for evaluation.
Learning Objectives: At the completion of this presentation participants will be able to: Apply service-learning as a strategy to enhance community/academic partnerships as well as to provide clinical opportunities for community health nursing students. Identify potential partners in their own communities to meet both service and learning needs. List two evaluation strategies
Keywords: Community Health Assessment, Partnerships
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
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.