Learning more about our Communities

Nursing student mental health project

Nursing students in Instructor Michele Mengert’s Mental Health and Community Concepts course recently completed their community advocacy projects as part of our Spring, 2019 service learning opportunities. Michele said, “students are purposefully working to learn community oriented nursing. We want to target prevention as a priority. Nurses need to understand how to advocate for specific populations of people and have knowledge of the resource programs in your community that you can partner with to help your patients.”

This semester 17 students spent over 80 hours researching and collaborating with community partners to learn more about planned parenthood, poverty, women & infants, suicide, domestic violence, opioid abuse, water quality, and more. Students formulated detailed advocacy plans to address how a nurse could help a community identify and address these issues, providing education, awareness, advocacy and resources. Students gathered data to help determine strengths and weaknesses in their own communities. Project presentations were held on May 17.

Congratulations on all of this great work on important community issues!

Written by Anne Lemke
Student Community Impact Coordinator