Paper Example: The Role of the School Nurse as Educator

A school nurse performs various tasks, including providing direct health care to both the staff and the student, offering leadership in the provision of health services, and promoting health and a healthy school environment (Selekman, 2013). To achieve the various tasks, a school nurse is guided by sixteen standards and collaboration is the focus of this essay.

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Through the collaboration standard, a school nurse conducts nursing practice by establishing collaborations with individuals, families, and healthcare consumers. The standard entails coming together and performing the work together, sharing the responsibilities, and making the decision together for the proper formulation of patient care plans (Selekman, 2013). School nurses possess a wealth of knowledge which they use to serve as school-community collaborators. Using their skills, nurses create teamwork and hence solve the problems facing the school fraternity. Through teamwork, school nurses disseminate their knowledge to their patients hence enhancing their ability to prevent health-related issues (Hoekstra, Young, Eley, Hawking & McNulty, 2016). Besides, nurses must recognize family diversity and involve them as education partners through the teams created. Through their skills and knowledge, the nurses connect the family to the classrooms hence enhancing care provision (National Association of School Nurses, 2016).

One of the core competencies relating to collaboration is teamwork. Collaboration with family, individuals and community aids in the development of teams through which solutions to the problems facing the school fraternity are solved. Further, the school nurse engages with the team players and consistently contributes to the school nursing literature. Through teamwork competency, school nurses disseminate their knowledge to their patients hence enhancing their ability to prevent health-related issues (Hoekstra et al., 2016). As a school nurse, I will engage the student's family members, especially parents, in the healthcare of a student in teamwork. One of the approaches I will use is to establish a communication channel that the team will utilize to support the spirit of a team approach in disease prevention and the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle.

In conclusion, collaboration equips school nurses with an invaluable pool of knowledge and skills in their discipline to clearly understand the needs and the problems of the patient, population, community, and family their serve.

References

Hoekstra, B. A., Young, V. L., Eley, C. V., Hawking, M. K., & McNulty, C. A. (2016). School Nurses' perspectives on the role of the school nurse in health education and health promotion in England: a qualitative study. BMC Nursing, 15, 73. doi:10.1186/s12912-016-0194-y

National Association of School Nurses. (2016). The Role of the 21st-Century School Nurse. NASN School Nurse, 32(1), 56-58. doi: 10.1177/1942602x16680171

Selekman, J. (2013). School nursing: A comprehensive text (2nd). Newark, DE: F.A. Davis Company