Purdue University School of Nursing and Biloxi, Mississippi: A Collaborative Community Partnership

Team Reach Out Biloxi is a student initiated opportunity to provide ongoing assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Designed as a service learning project, Purdue nursing students on 5 different occasions since the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, have integrated their leadership skills with application of public health knowledge, compassion and concern as they work in partnership with the Gulfport region Coastal Family Health Clinics.

The trips initiated by using the International Community Assessment Model (ICAM) (Novak, 2007) which included a windshield assessment shortly after Katrina hit. At this time, the School of Nursing worked with the community to determine what the immediate needs were and what role the School could play. Each semester, senior nursing students who opt for this opportunity, travel to the Gulfport region and experience firsthand the extensive devastation caused by this category 5 storm.

Using the ICAM model and questionnaires which focus on students and providers, the researchers want to assess the understanding of the critical components of effective service learning which would be to contribute and partner with communities for disaster response. The quantitative component of this research involves the demographic data collected over the past 5 trips and responses from questionnaires which will be administered on the 6th trip. The qualitative data includes feedback received and data collected from past groups and providers and the new students group and providers with whom they will interact on the 6th trip. Measures include questionnaires and ethnographic interviews. Analysis will include the use of frequencies, t-test, chi-square, ANOVA and correlation.

The participants of this project are 6-12 senior nursing students/trip over a 2 ½ year period post Katrina, their nursing faculty and the community partners on the MS Gulf Coast from Pascagoula to Pass Christian.

In conclusion, using the ICAM and a service learning framework, 30 senior nursing students and three faculty tested the effectiveness of their assessment, planning, and implementation of a 2 ½ year post Katrina disaster project.