FNS students and community groups learn from each other

Five community organizations have partnered with the Family and Nutritional Sciences department at UPEI over the past few months to help university students develop their skills in planning, implementing, and evaluating programs for health promotion and family education. In return, the participating organizations have benefitted from the sessions and activities that were presented by the students.

For their course in program planning and evaluation, 26 students worked in teams of five or six to research and create eight hours of programming for the community group of their choice. Their projects ranged from facilitating discussion groups about self-esteem among pre-adolescent girls in Charlottetown, to delivering awareness training regarding people with disabilities to grade five students in Eliot River School.

'The benefits of students and community groups working so closely are reciprocal. That's why this is such a positive project,' says Charlene VanLeeuwen, course instructor and field placement co-ordinator in Family and Nutritional Sciences at UPEI.

One student team worked in collaboration with the Seniors Active Living Centre, located in the CARI complex on the UPEI campus, on a project about nutrition and cardiovascular disease. They developed and delivered 'The Wellness and Healthy Living in the Elderly (TWAHLITE)" program, with the guidance of Olive Bryanton, Education Coordinator.

'I think we are very lucky at the Seniors Active Living Centre to have university students so close,' says Bryanton. 'The recent presentation by Family and Nutritional Sciences students on reading food labels and the importance of fibre was most interesting. We all learned something new and enjoyed the way they presented the information.'

'Through working directly with seniors, and other groups, the students learned a lot about communications issues in populations that they were not necessarily familiar with,' says Charlene VanLeeuwen. 'Our students gained valuable real-life experience by working in co-operation with different groups of people to collectively identify their challenges and develop effective activities. These activities had to support changes in behavior, whether it was what to choose for a healthy snack or how to interact with classmates with disabilities.'

The five community participants were Eliot River School, GEMS Girls Club, the Mi'kmaq Confederacy of PEI, the After-School Child Care program at Murphy's Community Centre; and the Seniors Active Living Centre.

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