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

Abstract

ne of the first studies that focused on community partners in service-learning (SL) recommended that "campus service-learning programs [take steps to] achieve a social change model in which the campus and community are equal partners and in which students are engaged actors for social justice." 1 This call has become increasingly important in nursing education with its renewed encouragement for students to be advocates for social justice, social change, and patient-centered care, all of which require the involvement of clients and communities in the education of future nurses. Service-learning is one approach to community involvement in the education of nursing students as social justice advocates. However, SL experiences often get underway without exploring factors that can facilitate a critical, social justice-based practice. 2 Insight on how to assess, evaluate, or improve characteristics in existing SL relationships that can facilitate critical SL goals of authenticity, social change, redistribution of power, and personal transformation is limited. 3 The purpose of this study was to begin to identify, describe, and understand facilitators and barriers to critical SL goals in an existing community-academic SL relationship and how the relationship could be improved. BackgroundCalls for nurses to encompass a critical, social justice-based practice in light of persistent health and health care inequities are powerful reasons for critical SL and the involvement of community partners in the education of future nurses. 4 The strategy of SL involves meaningful service, instruction and reflection for learning, civic responsibility, and community capacity building. 5 Expanding on the principles of SL, critical SL includes explicit goals for a more socially just-based practice including authenticity, redistribution of power, social change, and personal transformation. 3 Common phases in SL frameworks include planning, design, reflection, and evaluation. 6 The evaluation of SL outcomes in higher education has been primarily descriptive, cross-sectional, and focused on student outcomes rather than community partner outcomes, process, structure, or the tenets of traditional or critical SL. 6 Active and equitable involvement of community partners in critical SL can facilitate the development of authentic relationships that result in shared goals and

Nursing Students' Self-Efficacy in Immigrant Health

“…Service-learning relying on community-academic partnerships to educate nursing students has been a frequently used model to meet curricular learning objectives. Mayer 16 has highlighted the importance of an existing mutual partnerships and engagement with the community partners to support service learning.…”