scholarly journals Through the Looking Glass: Reflections from Three School Nurses Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author(s):  
Catherine Grano ◽  
Eileen Gavin ◽  
Robin Cogan

School nurses play a critical role as public health nurses and are guiding school communities through a global pandemic unlike anything seen in the past 100 years. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and worldwide shutdown, remote education became a necessity. In this article, three New Jersey school nurses share reflections about the COVID-19 pandemic. We illustrate the roles included in the National Association of School Nurses Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice, to describe school nurse contributions to address the COVID-19 community spread via contact tracing and care coordination. We describe school nurse advocacy through promotion of legislative inclusion in the state of New Jersey and efforts to mirror vaccine confidence. Our conclusion offers action steps to increase the presence of school nurses in key areas and build a more robust public health infrastructure.

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-149
Author(s):  
Rima D. Apple

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of school nursing in the USA in the early decades of the twentieth century, highlighting the linkages between schools and public health and the challenges nurses faced. Design/methodology/approach This historical essay examines the discussions about school nursing and school nurses’ descriptions of their work. Findings In the Progressive period, though the responsibilities of school nurse were never clearly defined, nurses quickly became accepted, respected members of the school, with few objecting to their practices. Nonetheless, nurses consistently faced financial complications that limited, and continue to limit, their effectiveness in schools and communities. Originality/value Few histories of school health have documented the critical role nurses have played and their important, although contested, position today. This paper points to the obstacles restricting the development of dynamic school nurse programs today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 327-331
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Flaherty

School nurses across Massachusetts and the nation rose to the challenges presented by the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). One of the many ways in which school nurses responded to the pandemic was to work in collaboration with their Local Boards of Health in a variety of capacities. The essential functions of a school nurse uniquely prepare them for the roles of case investigators and contact tracing monitors as a means to ensure population health. In addition to both individual and population health within the school setting, school nurses are effective partner in emergency planning and can help inform decision making and policy making within communities.


2020 ◽  
pp. 105984052093007
Author(s):  
Brenna L. Morse ◽  
Lori Anderson ◽  
Laurie G. Combe ◽  
Sandi Delack ◽  
Lynnette Ondeck ◽  
...  

The complexity and demands of the school nurse role have changed greatly over time. Our aims included determining tasks and knowledge relevant to modern school nursing in the United States, identifying continuing education needs of school nurses, and describing anticipated changes to the professional role. A secondary analysis of a cross-sectional web-based survey of 750 school nurses was performed. The study team evaluated calculations of mean importance and frequency for school nursing task and knowledge statements. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze open-ended responses. School nurses rated most tasks and knowledge as relevant to practice, underscoring the great depth and breadth of education and training school nurses need to meet the demands of students today. The results of this secondary analysis may be leveraged to accurately describe the school nurse role, advocate for nursing services, and support school nurses as they strive to better the health of school communities.


2022 ◽  
pp. 105984052110681
Author(s):  
Ashwini R. Hoskote ◽  
Emily Croce ◽  
Karen E. Johnson

School nurses are crucial to addressing adolescent mental health, yet evidence concerning their evolving role has not been synthesized to understand interventions across levels of practice (i.e., individual, community, systems). We conducted an integrative review of school nurse roles in mental health in the U.S. related to depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress. Only 18 articles were identified, published from 1970 to 2019, and primarily described school nurses practicing interventions at the individual level, yet it was unclear whether they were always evidence-based. Although mental health concerns have increased over the years, the dearth of rigorous studies made it difficult to determine the impact of school nurse interventions on student mental health outcomes and school nurses continue to feel unprepared and under supported in this area. More research is needed to establish best practices and systems to support school nursing practice in addressing mental health at all levels of practice.


2004 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 134-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Neighbors ◽  
Kathleen Barta

The components of a professional development model designed to empower school nurses to become leaders in school health services is described. The model was implemented during a 3-day professional development institute that included clinical and leadership components, especially coalition building, with two follow-up sessions in the fall and spring. Coalition building is an important tool to enhance the influence of the school nurse in improving the health of individuals, families, and communities. School nurses and nursing educators with expertise in the specialty of school nursing could replicate this model in their own regions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
Robin Landes Wallin ◽  
Susan Rothman

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice™ can provide a structure for evaluation using the School Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (3rd ed.), thus allowing the school nurse and school nurse evaluators to gain a better understanding of school nursing practice. According to NASN’s Position Statement Supervision and Evaluation of the School Nurse, standards should be used to evaluate the clinical practice of school nurses. Our project accomplishes this integration of the Framework, the standards, and the evaluation of school nursing practice.


2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-236
Author(s):  
Jane Tustin ◽  
Gloria Canham ◽  
Joanne Berridge ◽  
Deborah Braden ◽  
Thora Starke

Dissatisfied with current school nurse evaluation instruments, school nurse administrators sought to develop an appraisal system that would emphasize the professional role of the school nurse and provide a means to enhance individual practice. The newly revised Standards of Professional School Nursing Practice and the creation of a state teacher evaluation model presented the opportunity to produce an instrument that could be adapted within the educational setting for school nursing practice. The appraisal system included not only the methods to evaluate practice, but the means to involve the individual school nurse through goal setting. The process also included a structured intervention plan that facilitated remediation. This article describes the development of the appraisal system, the components, and the implementation of an evaluation system for school nurses.


2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth P. Christeson

School nursing is based on a conceptual foundation of community health nursing. Using community health nursing as a reference point, this article describes a viewpoint of school nurses as the population of care. With this perspective, school nurses will better understand how to foster the health of their community. Developed on the basis of McKenzie, Pinger, and Kotecki’s community health model, the Health of the School Nurse Community Framework has been designed to (a) facilitate understanding of the concept of “school nurse community” and (b) organize the factors that affect the health of the school nurse community. Essential to its use is the identification of the school nurse community’s assets and capacities as well as its needs. Application of the framework to strive to improve the health of one state’s school nurse community is also presented.


Author(s):  
Kyle Habet ◽  
Diomne Habet ◽  
Gliselle Marin

Belize is a small Caribbean country in Central America with limited resources in public health. Amidst a global pandemic, urgent attention was given to mitigating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in order to prevent a public health catastrophe. Early intervention on a national level was key to preventing the importation of cases and subsequent community transmission. Limiting the conglomeration of people, implementation of curfews, closures of school and universities, government-mandated social distancing, and extensive contact tracing may have mitigated the exponential spread of COVID-19. Mandatory mask-wearing in public may have helped to prevent spread between asymptomatic carriers to susceptible individuals. A low population density may have also contributed to containing the virus.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junjiang Li ◽  
Philippe J. Giabbanelli

AbstractThere is a range of public health tools and interventions to address the global pandemic of COVID-19. Although it is essential for public health efforts to comprehensively identify which interventions have the largest impact on preventing new cases, most of the modeling studies that support such decision-making efforts have only considered a very small set of interventions. In addition, previous studies predominantly considered interventions as independent or examined a single scenario in which every possible intervention was applied. Reality has been more nuanced, as a subset of all possible interventions may be in effect for a given time period, in a given place. In this paper, we use cloud-based simulations and a previously published Agent-Based Model of COVID-19 (Covasim) to measure the individual and interacting contribution of interventions on reducing new infections in the US over 6 months. Simulated interventions include face masks, working remotely, stay-at-home orders, testing, contact tracing, and quarantining. Through a factorial design of experiments, we find that mask wearing together with transitioning to remote work/schooling has the largest impact. Having sufficient capacity to immediately and effectively perform contact tracing has a smaller contribution, primarily via interacting effects.


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