Benefits, Opportunities, Challenges and Policies Used in Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Community-Based Service Learning Projects that Promote Health for Inner City Communities

This presentation describes benefits, opportunities and challenges for students and community partners from designing,implementing and evaluating community-based service learning projects, and addresses policies/ guidelines that facilitated design, implementation, and evaluation of community projects. Methodology: Traditional (n= 131) and accelerated (n= 108) community nursing students and 62 partners participated. Students assessed a community, identified needs and a topic for an intervention project. Topics included: asthma, nutrition/obesity, drinking, smoking, lead poisoning, immunizations, communicable and chronic diseases, violence and bioterrorism. Project policies/guidelines addressed: goals; funding; partnership strategies; responsibilities and roles of students/ mentors/ faculty; community assessment, intervention, and evaluation. Focus groups, interviews and formal outcome measures were utilized. Findings: Student' benefits/opportunities were: increased expertise in caring for inner city communities; understanding poverty and barriers to healthcare; cultural competence; knowledge of community resources; critical thinking, leadership, teaching, collaboration and Internet skills; exposure to partner/leader role models; nursing positions that provided care to inner city communities. Evaluations indicated 100% traditional and 96.88% accelerated students reported increased competence in assessing, planning and evaluating interventions for inner city communities. Partner' benefits were: new client health programs and educational materials; increased knowledge about health problems and community resources. Partners (100 %) agreed projects met community needs; findings were useful for program planning, policy development, and writing grants. Challenges were: time constraints; limited resources; language barriers, and group work issues. Helpful policies/guidelines for designing, implementing, and evaluating service learning projects addressed: using partnership strategies like identifying strengths; setting goals; understanding student/mentor/faculty roles and responsibilities; following assessment/intervention/ evaluation guidelines; project funding. Conclusions/ Implications: Service learning projects for inner city communities result in benefits/opportunities and challenges for students and community partners. Projects help partners meet assessment and intervention needs of communities, increase students' community knowledge and skills. Challenges included time constraints, limited resources; education/language barriers. Policies/guidelines facilitate design, implementation and evaluation of service learning projects. It is important to educate students, nurses, community partners about the benefits/opportunities and challenges of service learning for meeting assessment and intervention needs of inner city communities and to develop policies/guidelines for service learning projects.