BSN Capstone Students Go for the Gold

Four years of community engagement projects culminate in fun fitness event for Cleveland families

Posted 11/15/09

Linda Boseman and Sarah Stein

“We are giving the senior nursing students their wings if you will,” instructor Linda Boseman, MSN, APRN-BC, says as she tosses a basketball to a six-year-old girl. “We have provided them with a foundation during the first three years of their FPB education with community engagement, rigorous science courses, the departmental seminar, and acute care clinicals.”

On this chilly November evening, seven senior BSN students are hosting the annual Longfellow Winter Olympics, an event that serves as both a capstone project and a demonstration to the community that fitness can be fun.

“Tonight is truly a synthesis of the information that our students have gleaned during their matriculation through FPB,” Boseman says. “It’s also a thank-you to the community for giving our students the opportunity to develop their leadership, teaching, and management skills.”

A crowd of nearly 100 filled the gymnasium at Collinwood High School for the event, which featured basketball, three-legged races, hula-hooping, and a dance contest. According to Longfellow principal Sean Patton, the Olympics has become very popular over the years.

“Every year we look forward to having the FPB students at the school,” Patton says. “This is a true collaboration; the nursing students make a positive impact on the children, and they also get the families of the students and other community members involved.”

For BSN student Sarah Stein, the Winter Olympics was more than just a coursework requirement or service project, it was a transformative experience.

 “We’ve spent so much time working in the neighborhood over the past four years, but for the first time I feel like I’m truly part of this community,” she says. “The parents and kids hug me when they see me. I feel like we’ve really made a difference here.”

“I learned a lot about other people, and about myself, too, in the process,” she adds.

Leading up to the Olympics, Sarah and her classmates clocked time at Longfellow every Monday and Friday teaching a variety of topics, including healthy eating, exercise, wellness, prevention, and social and mental health, which became a focus of their work.

“We addressed things like bullying, self-esteem, stress-management, and violence,” she says.

However, in response to real-world events, Sarah and her classmates found they had to modify their lesson plans to address an emerging issue: H1N1 influenza.

“The students had a lot of misperceptions about ‘swine flu’ that they picked up from other kids and the media. They were very worried about it, but we helped to dispel those myths and worked that into the program. After all, education is a big part of nursing,” she says.

Management and administration are parts of nursing, too. Sarah took the lead in successfully applying for a grant award from the university’s Center for Civic Engagement and Learning to fund the Olympics as well as to purchase much-needed sports equipment for the elementary school. Undergraduate students at FPB have the rare opportunity to receive grant writing experience, which is not typically offered at other nursing schools.

In fact, service learning adds to the existing richness of FPB’s undergraduate program. BSN students provide nearly 20,000 hours of service to the Cleveland Municipal School District each year, giving them the opportunity to put into practice the skills they hone in class and during their extensive clinical experiences.

Jenny Caig

 “It was great to do the community service projects alongside our clinicals, because they complement each other so well,” senior Jenny Caig says. “Through the relationships we develop with students and their families, we have a better understanding of the community and how to negotiate and communicate with patients in the hospital setting.”

Instructor Linda Boseman agrees.

“The BSN students pick up leadership skills and learn to think quickly on their feet in both structured and unstructured environments,” she says. “The combination of clinical work and community engagement truly make our nursing graduates stand out as leaders.”

Back to the Olympics, with hula hoops spinning and basketballs flying, the entire gymnasium is full of activity—precisely the goal of the capstone students. One group of nursing students announces the winners of a raffle, awarding prizes to children and their parents, while another teaches a very young boy, the sibling of a Longfellow student, how to jump rope.

Laura Tycon, a New Jersey native, is grateful for the numerous learning experiences her capstone has provided and is hopeful that her young pupils and their families continue to take charge of their health well into the future.

“We’ve been doing service learning since our first year at FPB. Tonight was about coming full circle, putting what we’ve learned to use for these families,” she said. “The event was about their future as much as it was about ours.”

Source: Case Western Reserve University

 

RELATED

• Read more about the Senior Capstone Community Project

• Visit the BSN website