Documenting student community engagement projects

A team of nursing faculty at UBC School of Nursing under Principal Investigator Dr Maura MacPhee received internal teaching and learning enhancement funds (TLEF) from 2013-2017 to promote students’ project work. The resulting Community Nursing Matters blog and a few accompanying videos are available publicly to document community engagement activities of UBC Nursing students registered in Community Nursing and Synthesis Projects. Course Leader Ranjit Dhari coordinated students’ participation in the blog by encouraging them to write and share their insights on their involvement in community nursing. Dr Khristine Carino, Flexible Learning Coordinator, deserves special thanks for assisting students in developing videos, podcasts, posters and presentations to showcase their project outcomes and deliverables. Created and initially managed by Dr Carino, the blog is now the responsibility of BSN student volunteers Erica Benson and Maryam Koochek. Faculty, students and alumni are welcome to send in content material for the blog.

We hope to encourage our students to recognize how they, as nurses, can make a significant positive difference in the lives of many.

Synthesis Projects

The UBC School of Nursing includes a self-directed capstone course during the fourth and fifth terms of its accelerated program. Students work in project teams to synthesize their theoretical knowledge and apply what they’ve learned in collaboration with practice partners in a variety of healthcare settings, predominantly in lower mainland BC. As course leader for 2016-2017, I worked closely with community health nursing faculty, Ranjit Dhari and Joanne Ricci, to identify and recruit community-based partners for this year’s capstone/synthesis projects.

Several of this year’s student synthesis projects were forged with community non-profit organizations and healthcare providers in the Downtown Eastside. This year’s focus was on marginalized, vulnerable populations and the social determinants of health. UBC School of Nursing is very grateful to those individuals and their organizations in the community who shared their time and wisdom with our students.

Currently, Elsie Tan and Chandra Waddington, UBC nursing faculty, are helping students submit their projects for public access through UBC cIRcle, UBC’s electronic repository of student and faculty scholarship. We hope that you’ll check out students’ final project work through the Community Nursing Matters blog and UBC cIRcle.

As the BC Ministry of Health shifts it’s policy initiatives from acute care to the community, we hope to encourage our students, through these types of projects, to recognize how they, as nurses, can make a significant positive difference in the lives of many—in communities all around us.

Submitted by Maura MacPhee, RN, PhD
NURS 344 Course Leader 2016-2017