Saturday, November 1, 2003
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Sunday, November 2, 2003
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Sunday, November 2, 2003
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM

This presentation is part of : Accepted Posters

Workforce Enhancement: Instilling Value in the Nursing Role and Basic Health Teaching to Elementary School Children Through Nursing Student Projects

Margaret G. Balster, RN, MS, School of Nursing, University of Alaska, Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA and Terri Olson, RN, MS, School of Nursing, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA.

Workforce Enhancement:Instilling Value in the Nursing Role and Basic Health Teaching to Elementary School Children Through Nursing Student Projects

Recent information regarding the nursing shortage has led concerned individuals and groups to begin to assess the problem and offer interventions to meet the demand. The need for more nurses includes a need for nurses to represent the diverse population in which care will be given. In an effort to link nursing practice with the findings in literature, nursing students were assigned class projects in which they assessed and intervened in this particular problem area. One such focus was performing an educational presentation to younger aged children in the Anchorage area. Partnerships with community teachers were established by choosing classrooms in schools that had a proportionately higher diversity population, placing an emphasis on diversity of race and gender. Encouraging children of these diverse populations to consider nursing as a career choice was one of the main objectives of the presentation. Technology and the vestiges of nursing were used in the presentations by the nursing students in order to teach about the nursing role as well as educate them about basic health principles. The need to encourage individuals at a young age to enter the profession of nursing was a means to enhance the workforce for future health care needs of all Americans. The basic health care education which was offered to the children also met the needs of the teachers by offering a creative way to learn about health. This poster will describe the process of assessment and intervention with measured outcomes influenced by the student’s presentations. Pictures of the nursing students and tools used to engage the children will also be part of the display.

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