Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI)
Nursing
Department Partnership
Summary
The Calvin College Nursing Department had the opportunity to revise its
entire curriculum and selected a community-based model of education. The
Department undertook a year-long analysis of several potential partnerships,
and evaluated places using explicit partner selection criteria.
The Practice
Calvin began its intensive partnership work when Nursing Professor Gail
Zandee and Service Learning Center Co-Director Gail Heffner developed
a strong, ongoing partnership with the Creston Neighborhood Association
and Catherine’s Care Center, a neighborhood health care clinic that
arose out of the community center. Through the service-learning work that
was done in a community nursing course, three factors emerged that appeared
to be supportive of an effective college-community partnership:
- A strong neighborhood clinic;
- A strong neighborhood association headed by someone who was committed
to neighborhood organizing and empowerment, but also knew academic culture
and how colleges and communities could work together; and
- A community with heath care needs that could be met through joint
effort.
Faculty and students from Calvin College work closely with each community.
Together they determine health care needs and concerns, identify health-related
assets, develop a strategic plan that is owned by the community, implement
activities, evaluate services, and educate students.
The Nursing Department has begun a three-year cycle of needs assessment
and implementation for each neighborhood, which also includes strategic
plan development, implementation, and evaluation. These cycles are staggered
so that intensive door-to-door surveys and focus groups are happening
in only one neighborhood at a time and so that the overall Department
is involved in all phases of the cycle simultaneously.
Effectiveness
All three of the partnerships between the nursing department and designated
neighborhoods are currently working well, demonstrating the effectiveness
of the partnership selection process. Each neighborhood is a source of
learning opportunities for students, who come to know neighborhood families,
engage in neighborhood health-related research, and develop community
health interventions based on the identified needs of each neighborhood.
The partnership has been effective from a community standpoint as well:
all three clinics have been able to make use of student-generated research,
have expanded their neighborhood services, and have gained a closer connection
to community residents through the work of the students and faculty. At
the conclusion of each academic year, the nursing faculty, including the
Nursing Department Community Liaison, the community coordinator, and the
community clinic, school, and neighborhood center personally review the
partnership. These reviews are informal, and to this point there have
been no partnership problems. Both students and community residents participate
in evaluative activities (surveys, interviews) and give high marks to
the community-based work.
The community work that careful partnership selection has made possible
has resulted in several other external marks of effectiveness. One informal
marker of high evaluation by the college and the various communities is
that other health care schools and organizations within Grand Rapids have
asked to meet with representatives of the partnership to learn how they
can implement similar community-based programs. Materials to help this
implementation are being developed. In addition, research articles outlining
and evaluating this collaboration are in preparation.
Finally, Calvin’s Nursing Department was recently visited for accreditation
by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE.) These accreditors
gave Calvin very high marks specifically for its community partnership
activities, calling the program a “national model” that could
and should be emulated widely.
Resources
Calvin
College Department of Nursing
Community-based nursing and cross-cultural education course materials
are available from the Nursing Department.
Calvin
College Service Learning Center, COPC Project
Health
focus
Zandee, G.G. (2002) “Reciprocity and Partnership: The Multi-Dimensional
Impact of Community-Driven Nursing Practice.” In Heffner G. and
Beversluis, C. (Eds.) Commitment and Connection: Service Learning
and Christian Higher Education. University Press of America: Lanham,
MD.
Heffner, G.G., Zandee, G.L. & Schwander, L. (2003). Listening to
community voices: Community-based research, a first step in partnership
and outreach. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement,
8(1), 33-44.
Contact Information
Claudia Beversluis
Dean for Instruction
Calvin College
3201 Burton SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Phone: 616-957-6122
cbeversl@calvin.edu
Gail Zandee, RN, MSN
Community Partnership Development Consultant
Nursing Department
Calvin College
3201 Burton SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Phone: 616-526-7076
gzandee@calvin.edu
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Effective
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