SU nursing students are offering free healthcare screenings and health classes to those in the Yesler Terrace and Jefferson Terrace communities. Three screenings were held in October with two more scheduled for November 4 and 18. The students appeared in the October 2010 Issue of The Voice, a community-based newspaper serving the Puget Sound area.
[Pictured here left to right: (back) Tierney Burkhardt, Kaitlyn Gaskill, Brooke Holoubek, Erika Skovron, Megan Aucutt, and Lauren Abeyta; (front) Nancy Nguyen, Justine Lee, Kerianne Quiocho, and Rachel Hirota. Photo courtesy of The Voice/Neighborhood House.]
Nursing students regularly offer these services to the community as part of their course work at SU. Erika Skovron (Class of June '11) writes about the project, "as nursing students, our goal is to meet the members in the Seattle communities of Yesler and Jefferson Terrace. We are interested in examining and understanding the health issues affecting this particular population. Our goals in the community are to not only promote healthy living, but to educate individuals about ways to prevent, detect, or treat existing health problems."
All community health clinical courses offered by the College of Nursing include opportunities for students to provide health screenings and/or other nursing activities oriented to the care of groups or populations. These courses are offered twice a year and place nursing students in 6 to 8 different geographic communities throughout the Greater Seattle area. The activities differ at each location based on the needs of the community and are focused on partnering with existing health and social service organizations. The goal of these courses is to teach nursing students how to improve the health of communities as compared to other course work offered that emphasizes the care of individuals. This quarter, nursing faculty and students are participating in various activities in the following communities: White Center, Beacon Hill, High Point, Yesler Terrace, Lake City, New Holly, and Downtown/Pioneer Square.
To learn more about the Yesler Terrace, Jefferson Terrace and other Seattle area communities please visit the Seattle Housing Authority at http://www.seattlehousing.org/
To read the article about this nursing student project published in The Voice and Seattle Housing Authority News, please visit (page 15) http://www.seattlehousing.org/news/pdf/Voice_2010_10.pdf