Nursing Students Organize Injury Prevention Fair at Warman High School

A group of fourth year nursing students worked together during their clinical placement to organize a very well-received community outreach event this past week.

On November 18th, nursing students, high school students, media, health care professionals and the community came together for an injury prevention fair at Warman High School.

“At the beginning of our placement, we asked the students what they were hoping to learn from us and we noticed a common theme - injury prevention,” said student organizer Jenise Schneider.  “Throughout our placement, we did presentations and informal education on a variety of topics, but we felt injury prevention was suited to a larger audience, including the community.  Hosting an interactive injury prevention fair with speakers from a variety of professions and expertise on a range of topics seemed perfect. We worked collaboratively with the staff at Warman High School and the guest speakers and together we were able to provide education on injury prevention, a topic the students felt has been previously neglected from the standard curriculum.”

The event included guest speakers from STARS Air Ambulance, Warman RCMP, Warman Fire Department and the Saskatoon Police Service Canine Unit. Topics included drowning, dangers of thin ice, concussion prevention, distracted driving, drinking and driving, texting and driving and the drug dog Sabre from the Canine Unit kept participants entertained. The nursing student’s hosted interactive displays on topics not covered by the presenters, Warman Co-op provided the guest speakers with lunch and a variety of prizes generously donated by local businesses were handed out.

Monika MacKenzie, Grade 8 teacher at Warman High School had this to say about the event.  “The more the kids hear about injury prevention, the better. Whatever’s out there that can potentially affect these kids lives and their safety is important they learn about it. I support hosting a fair like this again in the future, hopefully with a few more hands-on activities.”

“The injury prevention fair was very informative and the topics selected were relevant for the students,” said Grade 9 teacher Lisa Kuchler. “I hope in the future we can expand the fair to include more students, as I think the upper year classes would have enjoyed this as well.”

“We feel this event was very successful; it was nice to see such a great turnout,” said Schneider. “Thank you Warman High School staff for helping us put this on, students and community members for attending and presenters for volunteering their time.”

Congratulations goes out to our students Holly Legge, Lindsay Hautzinger, Chad Michalenko, Jenise Schneider, Michelle Halvorson, Michael Luedemann and their clinical instructor Lynn Schmidt for an event well done!