Nursing Portfolio
VET-PRN Community Health Project
Purpose of the Assignment
The purpose of the community health projects (Healthy People Presentation, Clinical Application Papers 1&2, and CH poster presentation) are to guide the student through the process a complete community health initiative. First, the student identifies and applies national level key health indicators and applying them to a community aggregate. Next, the student builds partnerships with stakeholders and community members and applies the nursing process to promote health and well-being. The final part of the project allows students to experience scholarly dissemination of their original projects.
Student Approach to Assignment
For this assignment, my group was assigned to the Children’s Health Investment Program (CHIP) of Southeastern Hampton Roads. We initially started our project in Community Health I thinking about addressing the problem of unintended pregnancy among low income families in our area and our plan was to provide educational materials regarding this. However, our community partner suggested that they people in their program are already pregnant and therefore would not be able to help us as easily reach our intended demographic. Instead, she suggested we create a program to enhance nutrition for the children enrolled with CHIP. For this, we changed our thinking and created an interactive bingo game we could distribute through monthly packages the families received and held a competition where the children could win a prize for completing their bingo card. We focused on the additional money parents receiving SNAP benefits could collect to be used at local farmers markets to encourage the children to go to the market with their parents, pick out health produce, and go home and create family friendly meals as a family. We spent Community Health II researching childhood nutrition and inequities in low-income populations and then created our packets to be distributed and later presented our outcomes from this intervention at a poster presentation to our classmates and first year nursing students.
Reason for Inclusion of the Assignment in the Portfolio
I have chosen to include this assignment because it is a great example of a project that took a totally different direction than we originally planned and how we were able to adapt and overcome to address a more pressing problem for our aggregate. It demonstrates assessment of our aggregate, planning, implementation, and education. It also demonstrates the positive change we were able to provide to our community through dedication and keeping after our goal throughout multiple semesters. I have identified end of program competencies below.
Community Health I Project: Family Planning
Community Health II Project: BINGO Intervention
