Service learning in public health nursing education: How COVID 19 accelerated community academic partnership.
Days after COVID 19 physical distancing precautions were implemented, a coalition of community leaders in Baltimore City founded the Baltimore Neighbors Network (BNN) a volunteer network established to provide proactive phone based support to older adults in Baltimore City. BNN was a community driven approach aimed at reducing social isolation and improving health equity both during the pandemic and long term. This paper describes how the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing's (JHUSON) public health nursing clinical faculty and students partnered with BNN to support a community driven crisis response effort while creatively meeting student learning objectives. While engaging in the work of BNN remotely, nursing students were able to meet competencies across all eight domains of the Quad Council Coalition of Public Health Nursing Organizations. Schools of Nursing throughout the country can use this partnership as a model of a service learning strategy for public health nursing education during a crisis.
Public health nursing