Sharing Our Journey: Implementing a Multicounty Substance Use Prevention Program in Area Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe an interprofessional, evidence-based, nurse-led, substance use prevention program implemented in local and surrounding county school settings by university nursing and other health science students and to explore these students’ perceptions of their training and implementation of the program. This program was developed from a community assessment revealing the rise of adolescent substance use and the need for ongoing substance use prevention. This program’s journey encompasses a 4-year period with feedback from students in four university departments (nursing, psychological and brain sciences, public health, and social work) who learned and implemented the Say It Straight program targeting elementary and middle school-aged children. This program was taught over six weeks, with 45-minute lessons per week. Feedback collected over the period of the program reveals what is felt to be the most useful parts of the training, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the model implementation. School nurses are child advocates and often serve as leaders in developing health policies and programs in the school setting. This nurse-led, interprofessional, health promotion project can be viewed as a model for school nurses in establishing university partnerships to address community health needs.

Keywords

alcohol tobacco drug use prevention assessment of health care needs collaborative communication community/public health nursing health education nursing education Say It Straight program substance abuse prevention university partnerships

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