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Nursing graduate Jordan Gallant (BScN \u201921) spent the last term of her fourth year supporting Niagara residents through a clinical placement with Niagara Region Public Health, Pandemic Response Division.<\/p><\/div>\n
From fielding phone calls to administering vaccines, Brock Nursing grads Qynn Honsberger, Rebecca Balyk and Jordan Gallant spent the last term of their fourth year supporting Niagara residents through a clinical placement with Niagara Region Public Health (NRPH), Pandemic Response Division.<\/p>\n
Initially, the trio began working on a project for the COVID-19 call centre to provide a tiered response to support nurse capacity. They used different types of call data available to them and other internal systems to create answers for some of the most common questions being fielded. They then organized and formatted it into a user-friendly and more efficient way for nurses and new staff to access internally.<\/p>\n
On completion of this initiative, they each branched out into different areas of support, which included working virtually with COVID-19 patients to provide resources and do contact tracing; working with school outbreak teams on possible exposures and measures; and being deployed to the mass immunization clinics for inoculations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe each have experienced hospital nursing,\u201d says Gallant. \u201cThis was a completely different type of nursing, the core is still there, but how we adapted to meet client-centred care and how it was delivered, over the phone, was just as rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also supporting the COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics were Brock students enrolled in the Interprofessional Education for Quality Improvement Program (I-EQUIP).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project teams supported plans for all of the clinics in Niagara to give NRPH a place to start when setting up the sites,\u201d says Associate Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning and Health Sciences Associate Professor Madelyn Law, who is the founder and Director of I-EQUIP. \u201cFor example, they mapped out how patients would flow through the facilities, where people should sit and where the vaccination tables should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the pandemic, I-EQUIP is still functioning and providing value to community partners even through a virtual environment. Students demonstrated their abilities to continue their projects with forward thinking purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of interesting health innovations are coming forward due to this crisis,\u201d says Law. \u201cI don\u2019t want to discount how difficult this has been and still is, but we have learned how to make change in a positive way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students were still able to meet virtually with our community partners and plan projects to support health professionals with documents and process mapping on topics like social prescribing, mental health and care transitions,\u201d Law says. \u201cIn the future, our graduates will be the ones who step up and say, \u2018We\u2019ve got this, because we\u2019ve done this before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Maintaining some community partnerships during COVID-19 has also been a challenge because many non-profits and community-based agencies faced so much uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen COVID-19 hit, how we engaged with many service-learning agencies that help the community changed because they went from assessing whether they have capacity to mentor a practicum student to, in many cases, just trying to keep a roof over their heads,\u201d says Health Sciences Undergraduate Experiential Learning Co-ordinator Janet Westbury. \u201cWe made every effort to let them know we have students who want to help, as well as think out of the box, to expand the borders of where we are going to do placements, locally and globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the past year, every Department of Health Sciences student who wanted or needed a practicum had one. Among the many great examples of student contributions, which included placements at Niagara Health, Halton Region, YMCA-YWCA of Guelph and Thames Valley Children\u2019s Centre near London, Ont., one that Westbury is most proud of was with Wadadee Cares in Windhoek, Namibia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWadadee in the Damara language means \u2018everyone is welcome,\u2019\u201d says Westbury.<\/p>\n
Wadadee Cares focuses\u00a0on sustainable investment in children and their homes, including attending to their daily needs, education, safety and health. They support an orphanage that is currently home to 20 children, a soup kitchen that typically feeds 800 children, and five schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cStepping into a role with Wadadee Cares, which has been a community partner with Brock University for six years, during the COVID-19 pandemic, may have posed some challenges,\u201d says Westbury. \u201cBut Medical Sciences grads Valerie Pagnotta<\/a> and Gabriel Costantini along with third-year Medical Sciences student Krissy Oghinan didn\u2019t let that stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n The Township in Katutura, which Wadadee Cares supports, is a very marginalized, with very low-income demographic. There was little to no age-friendly information about COVID-19. In response, Pagnotta, Costantini and Oghinan created culturally appropriate infographics to go into the schools to help educate children on what COVID-19 is, how it\u2019s spread and how it can be prevented through social distancing and handwashing.<\/p>\n The infographics were geared for children ages five to 12 and work together with a health education programming document for teachers that includes lesson guides for the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cThis group worked very hard to create images and messaging the children would identify with, but this is only one example,\u201d says Westbury. \u201cThere are so many great students who have contributed to community initiatives through experiential learning initiatives this year.\u201d<\/p>\n