Putting Interns in Contact with the Community: The Family Surveillance Project

Abstract

The changing health care environment challenges educators to expand learning opportunities into the community and to place primary focus on prevention and rehabilitation. A community project, which has proven to be very valuable, is the family surveillance project. The purpose of this project is to get students involved with typical public health clients and familiar with the agencies/programs. Working with community affiliates, families are identified, screened, and assigned to students for a semester. During the student's first home visit, they complete a demographic questionnaire, a household description, a domicile description, a health habits questionnaire, a pantry survey and a listing of current program(s) participation. Subsequent visits are made to become more familiar with the family, refine evaluations of the family's needs, provide nutrition education, and monitor changes that may affect needs. Students keep a log of their visits and turn this in at the end of the semester as part of a report describing their assessments, the results of their assistance, and recommendations for future programs. In addition, the students present an oral report for class discussion. The nutrition care process model is used as the basis for the oral reports and targets the development of the student's clinical reasoning skills. Students’ understanding of the programs available to clients has vastly improved. Rather than merely repeating definitions and acronyms, students can now discuss the strengths and shortcomings of the programs, assess unmet client needs, and make recommendations for new programs or changes to existing ones. Exit evaluations with students after completion of the internship have been 100% in favor of continuing the project. It has proven to be a real “eye opener” for them and given them a new respect for their clients.