One way nurses can help in communities such as Largo, Maryland is to partner with non-profits such as Heart to Hand to increase pubic awareness of HIV services within the community. Heart to Hand is located in Largo, so it is familiar with the services available for those living with HIV in the vicinity. Heart to Hand itself provides services for people who have HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and they provide the services for free. Nurses can partner with Heart to Hand in their mission to provide support, education and resources to promote healthy lifestyles, decrease health disparities and increase access to healthcare by volunteering to lead HIV awareness presentations in middle and high schools.
Nurses can partner with Heart to Hand or other similar organizations by creating and presenting HIV educational programs in middle and high schools in the area. Adolescents can learn how to prevent the spread of HIV, who is most at-risk, and if they are living with HIV, they can learn how to do that in the best way possible. The White House Office of National AIDS Policy (2010) issued a report that explains, “There is a lack of knowledge related to HIV risk and transmission across broad segments of the American public” (White House Office of National AIDS Policy, 2010, p. 16). The report cites an AIDS advocate who says, “I hear from middle and high school students that having or living with STDs is just the way it is going to be….There is a lot of misconceptions in the media that is leading them to believe it is no big deal” (White House Office of National AIDS Policy, 2010, pp. 16-17). Because people have not been educated about HIV/AIDS, there is many misconceptions about how HIV is acquired and that is causing new infections. If young people are taught how to prevent becoming infected, this will help to stop the AIDS epidemic in the future.
Nurse-led presentations in health or physical education classes or other venues in schools can provide information that will help to prevent the acquisition of HIV and halt the spread of the virus to others. Nurses can teach about condom use, getting tested, and access to free or low-cost resources for prevention and testing. They can provide the latest research and progress on the disease. They can update young people on the latest developments in HIV/AIDS research and inform them of the new antiretroviral drugs (ARDs) that can make living with HIV successful, so even those young people who have HIV can have some hope for their future.
With the numerous sources providing information about HIV and ways to prevent and control it, amassing material for a presentation would not be difficult. Heart to Hand may already have materials used for the type of educational presentations that nurses could bring to schools. While teachers may teach about HIV/AIDS, adolescents may view nurses as having more credibility on the issue and take what they say more seriously since the students attending the presentations would not be tested or graded. Making the presentation interesting and memorable to the students would be the trickiest part. However, the timeline for putting such a presentation together should not be more than 3 months.
The next step would be to reach out to middle and high schools in the Largo, Maryland area and schedule times for the presentation to be given. Volunteering to do one presentation per week should not cut into a nurse’s free time too much. Presenting the educational material might be a fun and interesting adventure where nurses have the opportunity to interact with a whole auditorium full of adolescents. The HIV educational presentation program should begin at the beginning of the next school year, which is roughly a year from now. It should be tested throughout the school year and the data amassed from the testing should be evaluated over the summer months to see if it should continue for the next school year.
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