Facilitators and Barriers to Critical Service-Learning Goals in a Community-Academic Relationship

Educational exposure to authentic relationships where power is distributed is needed to prepare nursing students as social justice and patient-centered care practitioners and advocates.

The purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and understand facilitators and barriers to critical service-learning (SL) goals in an existing community-academic SL relationship.

Community partners were surveyed. Findings were compared with known factors in the literature that can facilitate or inhibit a relationship's success.

Identification and description of SL relationship facilitators and barriers included partner-reported benefits from involvement in SL and limited satisfaction with their role in designing SL curriculum.

Recommendations, such as increasing opportunities for partner involvement, provide insight into how to work toward critical SL goals in existing relationships. The equitable involvement of partners in nursing education processes has benefits for both students and community organizations.