The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Honing life-saving skills for nursing
VERONA, N.Y. >> Area high school students studying the nursing field at Madison-Oneida BOCES complete a rigorous academic curriculum and clinical work schedule during their two years in order to prepare for employment in the field or entry into college upon graduation. Many students in the Health Related Careers (HRC) program graduate from high school with a Nurse Assistant certificate, enabling them to apply for CNA positions right away.
As with all Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs at MOBOCES, the HRC program embeds many real-world experiences and hands-on activities to help develop employment skills, such as leadership, planning, communication, teamwork and empathy.
Most recently, the Health Related Careers classes partnered with MOBOCES Early Childhood Education (ECE) classes to recognize April as Child Abuse Prevention Month and raise awareness among their peers about this important issue.
Throughout April, students in those two CTE programs researched child abuse statistics, laws and cases. Then, on April 29, they hosted a Child Abuse Awareness Day on campus to share what they learned with other students. Health Related Careers students, for example, created wallet cards explaining what child abuse is and how someone can help in a child abuse situation, including contact information to file a report.
ECE student Jordan Accuri, from Rome, said researching child abuse cases was eye-opening.
“Notmany people realize how common child abuse is and how many kids get abused,” she said.
The on-campus awareness event was held in connection with the national Pinwheels for Prevention campaign. Students could purchase the campaign’s signature blue pinwheels in
honor of a child or someone who helped a child in need. Students created a pinwheel garden on April 30 in front lawn of the Rossetti Education Center at MOBOCES to close out Child Abuse AwarenessMonth. Students will give the donations from the pinwheel sales to a local child advocacy group.
Future nurses at MOBOCES also:
• Sponsor blood drives several times a year, coordinating visits from the Red Cross, encouraging eligible students and teachers to donate, and helping to sign in donors.
• Collaborate with other classes for peer education on health and safety topics. This has included a workplace safety lesson for Heavy Equipment Operation students and a personal hygiene initiative with Vocational-Technical Preparation students.
• Led a campus-wide Suicide Prevention initiative to inform teens about risks and impact of suicide and to begin a year-long kindness campaign to support the well-being of all students and staff and enhance school climate.
• Organized a Healthy Heart Day, which included research- based displays and hands-on demonstration stations focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
In addition to their inclass work, five students in the HRC program recently completed at the New York State SkillsUSA Championships, in the four-person Health Knowledge Bowl event and the Medical Terminology contest. In order to qualify for states, students had to finish in the top three of their events at the regional level, where nearly 900 high school students from 19 schools and BOCES competed.