Title : Up skilling undergraduate nursing students to meet the UK governments five year forward view to empower children’s health promotion within UK school settings
Abstract:
The UK government has put forward its mandate for a radical upgrade in prevention and health promotion in order to ensure the future health of millions of children. UK government and nursing policy has clearly outlined the imperative for nurses to develop health promotion and prevention skills to meet the policy requirements. Our project involved undergraduate Bachelor of Science (BSc) Adult Pathway nursing students, who planned and delivered a series of health promotion activities to 120 schoolchildren aged 9-10 years, in the university setting. Focus groups were carried out to evaluate participants’ experiences of these activities. Seven key themes emerged which highlighted benefits that both schoolchildren and the undergraduate nurses gained from the experience. These included; transferability of knowledge, enhanced professional development, collaborative working and relationship development as positive outcomes of carrying out the health promotion activities. Providing undergraduate nursing students on adult pathway programmes with the opportunity and responsibility of planning, designing and delivering health promotion activities for children and young people, can support the ambitions of UK government and nursing policy calling to action all nurses to work to prevent illness, protect health, and promote wellbeing in this target group.
Take Away Notes:
• The extended role of the nurse in public health promotion and prevention activities
• The additional skills the student nurses acquired in areas such as planning and managing this type of project and how to work collaboratively with other communities such as schools
• How this meets the nursing awarding body competencies in nurse education training
• This project highlights the possibilities of transferability of the project to other nurse education programmes and indeed other healthcare programmes
• Providing a nursing curriculum which offers undergraduate nursing students an opportunity and responsibility of planning, designing and delivering health promotion activities for children and young people has positive implications for children and for the professional development of the student nurses involved
