Learning Objective #1: Identify multiple shared partnering activities of clients and students

Learning Objective #2: Descibe three outcomes from partnerships between clients and students

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One recognized universal human need is that of needing to belong. Stigmatizing behaviors by both the public and health care professionals separate psychiatric clients from participation in multiple communities. Changes in heath care delivery to persons challenged by persistent mental illness require nurse faculty members to develop clinical and classroom experiences, grounded in the community. This approach assists future registered nurses to view clients in the context of belonging to communities. Faculty members teaching a second semester junior or first semester senior year course Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing developed the Collaborative Community Connections (CCC) model. This model promotes an advocacy-partnership approach to the teaching-learning process in which all participants, including clients, knowingly guide students learning. Clients contract with students to teach them the challenges of living with a mental illness. Through shared partnering activities – e.g. clients' transitioning from full/partial hospitalization to clubhouses, meeting with legislators, assisting with voter registration, assisting with college and employment applications – students expand their perceptions of clients to include seeing clients as integral functioning members of communities. Students also practice advocacy skills with individual clients and client groups. Students verbalize that outcomes of the partnerships modify their stereotypic views of clients and help them view clients as collaborators rather than victims. Clients describe their changing views of baccalaureate nursing students as being more responsive to diverse needs such as life goals and belonging to multiple communities.