Community/Public Health Nursing Academic Practice Center

Healthy People, Healthy Homes, Healthy Communities Center (H3) is a community/public health nursing service-learning center in a large university school of nursing in the Eastern U.S. Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teaches professional skills and civic responsibility, and strengthens communities. The impact and outcomes of public health nursing practice is well documented. H3 draws on evidence-based practice and service-learning to create opportunities for building student knowledge and skills, while simultaneously bringing effective PHN services to vulnerable populations in the community. H3's goals include developing: (1) a Skills and Scenarios Clinical Simulation Workshop with guided hands-on experiences for entry-level students; (2) Public Health Computer Stations with access to public health databases, community data, electronic resources, and linkage to community service resources, (3) PHN Toolkits for faculty, students, and community use in population-focused programs and services; (4) Community Service-Learning Partnerships with schools, nonprofit service organizations, public health agencies, health care providers, faith-based organizations, and others with social embeddedness and multi-sector collaboration as essential features. H3's C/PHN faculty and Clinical Simulation Laboratory staff have: (a) created a one-day, 6-station workshop for 53 entry-level C/PHN clinical groups (28 faculty & 423 students), (b) developed 12 PHN Toolkits and an inventory-reservation-check-out system with additional toolkit designs underway, and (c) designed a service-learning partnership model that has been implemented in 4 urban neighborhoods with vulnerable populations. Public health computer stations are in preliminary stages in partnership with the university library and the IT department. Evaluation of progress to date, midcourse corrections, and future planning are in progress. H3 demonstrations are scheduled for the 2010 State House of Delegates, for the 2010 National Public Health Week, and the 2010 National Nurses Week.