Community assessment and consultation

SMITHFIELD MIDDLE SCHOOL

SMITHFIELD MIDDLE SCHOOL
Introduction
A community is a social group of no particular size whose member composition resides in a particular area, share the same government as well as have similar historical and cultural heritage (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2011). The community accessed in this particular study is Smithfield Middle School with a specific focus on grade eight students. The parents of the community are immigrants and are usually busy working most of the times. The social living situation that the dwellers are exposed to assist in making the definition of a community. The community has been used as it has health seeking traits arising from the large number of dwellers and the resultant inhabitants (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2011). The history of the school traces back to the year 1845 when it was built on logs (Smithfield Middle School, 1981). It had fifty students in total. Later a brick schoolhouse was constructed in 1874 and the numbers of pupils increased to 60 (Smithfield Middle School, 1981). In the year 1966, Smithfield senior school was opened by Etobicoke Board of Education to serve 250 students (Smithfield Middle School, 1981). As time went by, two new wings were added, alongside a resource centre and a lunch room. The year 1981 marked the change of the school name to Smithfield Middle School (Smithfield Middle School, 1981). Currently it is serving a total of 835 students from grades 6-8.
The Process of consulting with the community
The method applied in the data collection is the analysis of windshield survey together with primary and secondary sources (Anderson & McFarlane, 2003). This is a method of collection (windshield survey) that is conducted through systematic observations which are made from a moving vehicle (Anderson & McFarlane, 2003). This was because the area was large enough to encompass sufficient population covers. This assessment will assist in the determining the vital data that is used in recognizing community needs, predicaments that can arise, organization of the community, their cultural practice and other aspects that are used in the establishment of the state of health in a particular community. Ultimately, this research is used to analyze health concerns in a specific community (Tones, & Green, 2004).
Data was collected via primary and secondary source methods depending on their availability during the survey. Primary sources were accessed via individual interviews of people who usually interacted with the community and had vital knowledge about the health of people in the area (CNA, 2008). Interview participants held diverse statuses surrounding health concerns in the community. One of participants was the community public health nurse. As a public nurse, this participant has various health records, methods of community treatment and has intimate knowledge of the common health issues affecting the community. A social worker in the community also served as a good source of information to reveal methods of social and family support and advice. My preceptor gave several points of advice on health matters and community connections as well as with my interactions with the school counselor. Secondary sources consulted included health records obtained from the health nurse, scholarly written articles concerning health, books from authors and websites related to health (Leddy, 2006). During the consultation, I asked questions concerning housing and zoning, transport, race and ethnicity, boundaries, service centre and finally the street life and social life of community members. As a result of the information collected, it is obvious that health issues emerge densely populated area. To ensure confidentiality, I settled on individuals who were particularly precise about the research focus. Individuals in the professions provide vital confidential data and hence I was assured of gaining accurate information from them. For example, the study highlighted that parents were quite busy almost all the time working to make ends meet and this caused deteriorating health matters particularly to the children who happened to be left exposed to cold winter conditions (Tones & Green, 2004).
Knowledge of the Community
From the responses and information gathered in this study, I concluded that the community, particularly the grade eight students in the area is living in poverty. The parents have little time to spend with the children as they are busy working. Poverty has given rise health to problems because of low economic provisions that would assist in caring for various medical needs (Leddy, 2006). Students largely come from immigrants families who do not have a good base economic base as they are still new in the area. Single parents have quite a hectic time caring for their children with the majority of the parents earning very low income contributing to further poverty (Leddy, 2006). The population is composed of immigrants, single parents and individuals who earn low income (Leddy, 2006). As a result of their low income, community members can only provide for the basic needs and often cannot afford to cater for the extensive secondary needs. Another result discovered through the study is that many community members are illiterate and lack the vital knowledge concerning the community and how to address their own problems (O'Connor-Fleming & Parker, 2006). The topics are gathered from the speeches of the children which addressed this as a vital concern from them and deeply affected them. Participant also spoke about global warming and unemployment; however, they rarely focused on health issues and other requirements especially in child health, maternal health and reproductive health. There were also issues surrounding a lack of proper sanitation. Due to these diverse issues, these people rarely have time to pay attention to the health issues affecting them (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2011). Such people focus only on the income generating motives that will assist them in coming up with the day’s meal and survive. Individuals with low income often attempt to try and come up with better living conditions but are too busy to realize that they may be suffering from various health risks (Smithfield Middle School, 1981). Individuals from low income communities often strive to be able to at least meet some of the basic daily needs like food to ensure the survival of the young ones who are still depending on them for livelihood (Leddy, 2006). They survive with very low income hence their living environment is always challenged by lack of some of the basic social amenities like poor housing and unhealthy eating habit which always result to diseases (Leddy, 2006). Lack of sufficient income also means that their children are always not in comfortable and warm clothing during the winter conditions; this can result in cold related respiratory diseases such as pneumonia among others (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2011). Such diseases serve as major economic drawback as most of the little earned money is barely spent on the living standard development, but it is spent on the attempts to meet the medical expenses related to the ailing victim (Community Health Nurses Association of Canada, 2011).
One of the issues accompanying poverty health is substance abuse ref. More attention should be given to the issue when addressing the health of the children. Globally, over two million child deaths are taking place annually is every corner of world due to malnutrition and other health issues ref. This can be attributed to the failure of the concerned parties to implement success programs that deal with these issues ref. The services of community health as conveyed through health personnel such as community health nurses describes the challenges of trying to assist in gradual elimination of the substance abuse. Health is a general problem to the whole community; the problem is persistent to the children especially as they the next generation. The health deterioration has a lot of consequences and often affects health personnel who have to handle the problem on their own once the patient or victim is brought in for treatment ref.
The second health issue was sanitation. This is brought about by living in the slum related living conditions which results is poor sanitation (O'Connor & Parker, 2006). The community thereby is exposed to the ills and diseases that are associated poor sanitation and living conditions. The various housing structures that are found in the area are either small for the number of family living in it or have a structural defect leaving only a small percentage of the community to live comfortably. Most members of this particular community as it was observed during the study have a great problem when it comes to housing. The other challenge included societal relations. This among other major other causes led to stress and increased cases of depressi...