Community Nursing
As a student, you’ll get hands-on clinical experience working in one of four urban, culturally-diverse neighborhoods in Grand Rapids.
You will learn the health care strengths and needs of these neighborhoods and have the chance to engage in service-learning and neighborhood renewal. Working with people in their own environment will give you a context when you are getting clinical experience in the hospital.
The nursing department curriculum flows from the mission of the university to prepare students to be agents of reconciliation and renewal in our world. Join us in continuing the university's commitment to service learning and community partnerships.
Baxter - Madison
Love kids? Baxter-Madison focuses on health education for kids and older adults. You have the opportunity to shadow a school nurse, teach sessions at the community center, and meet with a resident at a senior housing facility to gain experience in health assessment.
Long-term partnership
The Baxter-Madison neighborhoods and Calvin nursing department formed a partnership in 2002. The partnership aims to provide students with community-based experiences that meet curriculum objectives and promote the health of the residents in the Baxter-Madison neighborhoods.
While working in Baxter-Madison, you will have the chance to get to know people in their own environment. Much of a nurse’s work is done in a hospital-like setting, so this is also a great opportunity to really meet with people where they are comfortable.
In the first semester of your junior year, you’ll have gained a wide variety of experiences in the neighborhoods. You’ll each spend a day working with a nurse in the holistic health clinic located in the enlarged/remodeled Baxter Community Center. You'll partner up with another student and teach two health-related topics (nutrition, exercise etc.) to students in Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Academy.
As a student, you can spend part of a day shadowing a school nurse to see what their role is in caring for the children of the neighborhoods and assisting the nurse as appropriate.
You will also meet with a resident in a neighborhood senior housing facility. In addition to getting to know the person, they complete an extensive health assessment, and from that, an area of need for health teaching is completed with the resident.
Survey results
Recently, seniors have had the chance to do research in Baxter-Madison. After a survey in the neighborhoods revealed women were interested in learning more about their bodies, seniors partnered with a community health worker and do home visits. Surveys were done in 2003, 2010, and 2017.
- Thirty percent agree that lack of health insurance prevents them from receiving the health care they need.
- Forty-eight percent have at least one person in the household with hypertension.
- Thirty-three percent have at least one person in the household with asthma.
- Twenty-seven percent have at least one person in the household with depression.
- Twenty-four percent have at least one person with diabetes.
- Twenty percent state they had a time where they needed prescription medications but could not get them because of cost.
Download the Baxter-Madison survey results
This has been a very beneficial partnership for both the neighborhoods and the nursing students. You will be provided with a variety of valuable learning experiences while responding to needs of and serving a diverse, vulnerable population, Jesus' own precious children—young and old alike.
Burton Heights
As a student working in Burton Heights, you will have the opportunity to interact with culturally diverse clients and work on your language skills. You will have the opportunity to proactively approach clients searching for healthcare information and services.
Calvin in the neighborhood
The Burton Heights neighborhood abounds in community resources like schools, clinics, and pantries. It has a large Spanish-speaking population, so you can have a chance to work on your language skills.
Students learn about the communicative struggles and social determinants of health, like transportation, safe neighborhoods, employment, education, and legal status.
Survey results
Calvin nursing students conducted community-based participatory research in 2002 with focus groups, community leaders, and door-to-door surveys. It identified neighborhood strengths, areas of growth, and solutions to residents' health concerns and how they thought Calvin nursing students could partner with them to promote health in their areas of concern. Research was done again in 2009 and 2016.
Research demonstrated:
- Twenty-seven percent stated that they have had to choose between paying for essentials, like food or rent, and buying medical care.
- Thirty-two percent agree that lack of health insurance prevents them from receiving the health care that they need.
- Sixty-five percent are Spanish-speaking.
- Thirty-seven percent visited the ER in the last year (2008).
- The top five neighborhood health issues addressed were lack of access to health care, mental health asthma, diabetes, and hypertension.
- They believe that family, education, and faith are important in day-to-day life.
Download the Burton Heights survey results
Opportunities
You'll have opportunities to work in a variety of community settings. Work in clinics, food pantries, schools (with home care and public health nurses), and client homes.
As one of the hallmarks of the program, you and your peers will team up community health workers. Rather than waiting on people to approach health care providers, you can bring health education to them. Talk to parent groups in schools and churches. Go to public spaces like food pantries, exercise classes, and even door-to-door. You'll see how to care for your patients while being culturally sensitive and linguistically compatible.
The variety of experiences, combined with the diversity of individuals and the complex community needs, will challenge your Christian ethics, provide valuable learning, and serve one of Christ's vulnerable populations.
Creston - Belknap
With an established presence in the Creston-Belknap neighborhood, you will focus on health education for the whole community and learn how to make strategic plans for a neighborhood.
Long-term partnership
Calvin nursing students have had the privilege of working with the Creston and Belknap neighborhoods for many years now. By partnering with one another, the Creston-Belknap neighborhoods and Calvin nursing department aim to promote the health of the neighborhood residents and provide community-based experiences for students.
Calvin nursing students completed a random door-to-door survey of Creston and Belknap residents in the springs of 2004, 2011, and 2018.
From the initial data in 2004, a neighborhood strategic plan was established, and it's updated yearly. First-semester junior students participate in activities within the strategic plan. They teach health-related topics to students age five through 18, do blood pressure and blood sugar screenings, and work with neighborhood clinic nurses. Junior students also meet with a resident of the neighborhood to promote the individual’s health.
Second-semester senior students assist in ongoing neighborhood assessment and review of the strategic plan. Senior students use a public health model to plan, publicize, and present the annual Palmer (elementary school) Health Fair. A third major activity for the senior-level students is participation in the Community Health Worker (CHW) Program. A lay CHW is paired with two nursing students to create a CHW team. Each team identifies an area to meet with residents, finds out where residents gather, or go door-to-door talking to residents about their health. For example, some residents go to Supper House, an outreach of North End Community Ministry (NECM), where residents can be served a free hot meal every Thursday evening. The most frequent resident concerns are access to health care, such as dental care, available health clinics, health insurance programs, and prescription assistance programs.
Maintaining a presence in the Creston-Belknap neighborhoods serves a two-fold purpose for the Calvin community: We are able to show to others the compassion that Christ displays to each of us, and also learn valuable lessons from those whose experiences differ from our own.
Heartside
As a student in the Heartside neighborhood, you will work with a large homeless population, listen to the voice of the patient, and account for their environment.
Working in the Heartside neighborhood sheds new light on what it means to be image bearers of Christ.
Heartside is our newest neighborhood partnership, begun in 2011.
Heartside neighborhood has been “home“ to the homeless for many years. Many Heartside residents live in shelters or subsidized housing. The neighborhood has no single-family dwellings. Apartment buildings, hotels, commercial buildings, churches, missions, and other providers of services to the homeless are prevalent in the neighborhood. Nearly 75 percent of the Heartside population is single males between the ages of 35-64, and most have limited resources.
Download the Heartside survey results
The nursing department is currently conducting a neighborhood survey/assessment. The results will be used to set goals and identify projects, which we will undertake to improve the neighborhood health.
There are two missions in the neighborhood, Guiding Light Mission and Mel Trotter Ministries. Our work in the Heartside Neighborhood provides health screening, health education, flu immunizations, and answers to individual people about their health and health-promotion activities.
In the first clinical course of their junior year, students learn skills such as therapeutic communication, nursing care planning, and client assessment, which includes taking blood pressure. In each neighborhood, students in the first semester are paired with an adult and child client. They assess the clients and provide health education.
Students also provide group education for a partner school's classroom and a neighborhood adult group. They “shadow” nurses in community settings to begin to understand the roles of a nurse.
While working in Heartside, students learn to listen to the client and the neighborhood. They learn to see how the environment affects the client’s health. Students focus on educating and advocating.
Students have a variety of opportunities to work in the neighborhood. One of them, the Heartside Drop-in Depot, focuses on connecting people with the resources they need, such as:
- Contact with primary care providers
- Information on how to understand medications
- What things have a detrimental effect on their health
- Basic health programs, like a fitness walking program
Since walking is the primary mode of transportation in Heartside, once a month, LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church provides a place to meet clients in a relaxed setting and do a foot spa.
“Working in the Heartside neighborhood sheds new light on what it means to be image bearers of Christ," says Lauren Schuitema, the nursing faculty member who works in Heartside. As students interact with people different than themselves, they are able to gain confidence in their conversation skills, and barriers between nurses and patients come down.