A tripartite learning partnership in health promotion

The shift in health care towards primary health services and health promotion requires nursing education to ensure students learn to practice in partnership with communities. In primary health care settings opportunities for students to learn the participatory communication skills required for collaborative practice have been found to be constrained by a range of factors. An innovative approach increasingly being reported is for nurse educators and students to work with groups in the community, for example with teenage mothers. In mental health this approach is common, with consumers willingly working with nurse educators and students to complement the experience students gain working alongside health care professionals. This paper describes a partnership between a New Zealand nursing programme and a community trust whereby nursing students together with youth enrolled at a local high school promoted health. The nursing students reported that the experience encouraged them to view their practice from the perspective of the young people with whom they were working, and to see their efforts in the school setting as part of the wider community's health. It is argued that this strategy successfully contributed to the students' acquisition of the collaborative skills required to develop nursing partnerships within communities.