Preparing Nursing Students to Work With Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities

With the shift in healthcare to primary care, health promotion and population health, it is important for nursing students to engage in a variety of learning venues. The need for collaborative practices in the community is an ever increasing necessity. Community Engagement is a signature experience for the students at The College of New Jersey. This opportunity allows students to apply their additional knowledge and enhanced skills to address a community need, as well as develop their own civic skills and clinical skills through an experiential learning opportunity. Projects are guided by the learning objectives of the course as well as the needs of the community. Students in their sophomore year spend 25 hours participating in community engagement in a variety of setting building on their core content in nursing health assessment, nutrition and lifespan classes. This type of community based learning allows the students to care for populations in the community setting that they would typically see in the outpatient settings with chronic conditions, develop patient communication skills with various age groups, practice health promotion and disease prevention and increase their awareness for the relevant health issues of rural and undeserved communities. Student’s exposure to individuals with intellectual disabilities is limited in the traditional clinical settings.Research shows that individuals with disabilities report dissatisfaction with personal experiences with healthcare professionals. They stated they felt patronized and disempowered (Matziou et al., 2019). Parents of children with disabilities have described their care as inexperienced, poorly organized and fragmented. In order to educate nursing students on interacting with individuals with differing abilities they need experience. The college of New Jersey nursing department in conjunction with the Career and Community Studies (CCS) and Dawn of Hope programs developed a program called “Health Break” to give the students an opportunity to work with individuals with intellectual disabilities.Career and Community Studies (CCS) is a college-based program designed for students with intellectual disabilities ages 18-25. Dawn of Hope Project is a program designed to provide practical instruction to girls in critical areas such as character development, building self-esteem, embracing their identity, life skills, health and wellness. Together the programs facilitator and the students provided the CCS students with self-esteem, stress reduction and coping techniques. Nursing students participated with Dawn of Hope Project whose program is designed to provide practical instruction to girls in critical areas such as character development, building self-esteem, embracing their identity, life skills, health and wellness. The students provided educational information sessions on various topics related to health and wellness as well as self-esteem. Students as well as faculty benefit from this type of educational/clinical setting. Students acquire the ability to apply what they have learned in “the real world”, improved social responsibility and citizenship skills, connections with professionals and community members allow for learning and career opportunities and improve assessment and clinical skills. Faculty benefit from new opportunities for research and publication via new relationships between faculty and community partners and it allows networking opportunities with engaged faculty in other disciplines or institutions as well as other healthcare professionals.