Your health matters: improving health outcomes though health education/promotion among an urban population

Abstract

The College of New Jersey Department of Nursing in collaboration with HomeFront will be starting a program entitled: “Your Health Matters,” a program for health coaching and health education for the residents of HomeFront. Stress is a factor in the lives of the clients at HomeFront and stress is directly related to physical/mental health and wellbeing. Health literacy and health and wellbeing are also components of being healthy. Due to COVID, the program had to be redesigned to meet the needs of the residents. The program was developed to be at Camp Mercer, a summer camp for the children serviced by HomeFront. Nursing students provided health education, stress reduction and first aid to the campers at camp Mercer. The benefits of the program to the campers and their guardians were: 1) that children learned stress reduction techniques; 2) that children learned various summer safety tips; 3) that children learned about visiting the healthcare professional; and 4) that adolescents learned about the COVID vaccine. The benefits of the program to the nursing students were: 1) that nursing students learned basic first aid skills; 2) that nursing students learned about the social determinants of health; 3) that nursing students learned about trauma informed care; and 4) that nursing students were able to apply lessons learned in developmental psychology and health assessment.