academics
Seeing the Light through community care
Experience at First Light Shelter helps students realize full impact of nursing profession WRITTEN BY CATIE ETKA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK COUCH
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uests range in age from 19 to well into their 80s, and may be chronically homeless or in crisis and need emergency shelter. Many are mothers with children and most have known some kind of abuse. And the impact the residents of First Light Shelter have made on a group of BSN students will last long into their nursing careers and lives. The students, part of the Concepts of Community and Public Health Nursing Practicum course, recently spent a semester working on a community impact project with their assigned clinical agency — First Light Shelter. First Light, located in downtown Birmingham, serves homeless women and their children. It’s one of 32 community partners across Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Hale Counties engaged with the School and providing rural and urban learning opportunities for students.
Melinda Ledford, BSN, RN, (left) with classmate Ashlee Sullivan, BSN, RN, worked at the First Light Shelter packing healthy high carb snacks for residents to take on extended bus commutes.
“I now realize that our nursing skills have just as much value in the community as they do in the hospital.” -Melinda Ledford, BSN, RN 30
UAB NURSING / FALL 2016
The group assigned to First Light identified problems specific to diabetics who are dependent on the Birmingham bus system for transportation. The group noted that long commutes could lead to an increased prevalence of low blood sugar. As a result, the students provided patient education and raised money for lunchboxes with healthy high carb snacks for residents to take on extended commutes. “The course changed the way I view my profession. I now realize that our nursing
skills have just as much value in the community as they do in the hospital,” said Melinda Ledford, BSN, RN, who was part of the First Light Women’s Shelter group and graduated in April 2016. Implemented in Fall 2014 by instructors Katie Buys, DNP, MPH, NP-C, and Laura Debiasi, DNP, MPH, CRNP, NP-C, and Assistant Professor Sallie Shipman, EdD, MSN, RN, CNL, the semester-long undergraduate course and its didactic partner course provide students the knowledge and opportunity to apply public health nursing competencies to a population of people at an assigned community agency. They work within groups of up to four students to perform a community assessment, evaluate facilitators and barriers of the agency, and deliver a community impact project for an identified problem guided by evidence-based practice. Once the projects are complete, students present posters at the UAB Expo which is held every semester and showcases the research and service learning work produced by UAB students. Since fall 2014, the School’s student groups have completed 136 community impact projects, receiving awards for excellence at the Expos and recognition in local news media. “Our students leave this course with a newfound perspective on public health and their role as a nurse,” said Shipman, who manages the practicum course. “We want students to see what life is like for their patient outside the hospital. If my students learn to think about the impact their patient’s home environment plays on their health, then I’ve done my job.”