NASN, in collaboration with the Institute for Educational Leadership and with generous support from Kaiser Permanente, is pleased to announce the Champions for School Health funding opportunity. $1 million will be given out by NASN over the course of this year, for projects designed to increase access to and confidence in the pediatric COVID-19 vaccine, particularly in under-resourced communities.

In this first funding cycle, awards up to $10,000 will be given. Awards are limited to grantees within the Kaiser Permanente market – CA, CO, GA, HI, MD, OR, VA, WA, and the District of Columbia. The deadline for submission of grant applications is 5 p.m. EDT April 4, 2022.

NASN March Podcast: Supporting Students With Long COVID

School-age children are not immune to COVID-19 or the pronounced and persistent symptoms associated with a long-COVID diagnosis. Students may present with a variety of symptoms affecting their physical, cognitive, and mental health. The school community should be educated on the school-based interventions and recommendations for creating an individualized safe and successful return to school plan. In this podcast, hear NASN School Nurse Editor Cynthia Galemore interview authors Megan Roesler and Patricia Fato about the article, "Long COVID - The New “Invisible” Illness: How School Nurses Can Support the Nursing and Educational Teams for Student Success."

Assessing Substance Abuse Risk in Students 

This section highlights news stories featuring NASN and school nurses. If you have a story about school nurses you'd like us to consider including, please send it to us.

COVID-19 Community Levels is a new tool to help communities decide what prevention steps to take based on the latest data. Levels can be low, medium, or high. Hospital beds in use, hospital admissions, and the total number of new COVID-19 cases in an area will determine community levels. School nurses can use the map of the U.S. by county to track the community level of transmission for your school(s), which is updated weekly.

New guidance for state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments includes the advice that universal case investigation and contact tracing are not recommended for COVID-19. Health department jurisdictions should prioritize specific settings and groups at increased risk. STLT health departments may still provide technical assistance and support to K-12 schools and districts that choose to continue with case investigation and contact tracing, particularly if they are implementing test to stay (TTS) strategies. CDC guidance for K-12 Schools, Early Childhood Education, and Higher Education is coming soon.

Care Coordination is one of the five principles in NASN’S Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice^TM. In April 2018, NASN convened the Strategy to Action Roundtable to identify key components of a collaborative approach to manage chronic health conditions in school-age children. The resulting white paper, Translating Strategies into Actions to Improve Care Coordination for Students with Chronic Health Conditions, ended with a call to action for meeting participants to work together in the school community. The roundtable also resulted in a call to action for NASN to develop additional tools and resources to support school nurses in leading care coordination for students with chronic health conditions. This toolkit answers that call.

The Advocates for Youth publication Creating Safer Spaces for LGBTQ Youth is a new resource on the Division of Adolescent and School Health's (DASH) Creating Safe Schools for LGBTQ+ Youth webpage. This publication is a toolkit for education, healthcare, and community-based organizations. DASH's webpage provides key learning objectives and resources that schools and school districts can use to help school nurses and other school staff build core competencies for supporting LGBTQ+ youth in schools. 

Rates of attempted suicide and suicidal thoughts among youth have risen in recent years, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10-24 in the United States. This trend has been exacerbated by stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The devastating – and preventable – losses in life reveal real-time gaps in the nation’s mental health services and disparities in access to treatment. To address these needs, NASN has partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), in collaboration with experts from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to create a Blueprint for Youth Suicide Prevention. This comprehensive document aims to support pediatric health clinicians in identifying strategies and partnerships to support children and teens at risk for suicide.

Talking to Students About the War in Ukraine 

School nurses are often one of the first healthcare professionals in schools to see signs of anxiety and stress. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), and the American School Counseling Association (ASCA), have resources for educators and caregivers focused on supporting children and youth in addressing the stressors related to the conflict in Ukraine.

NASN, as a proud partner of Attendance Works, is excited to announce the launch of the 10th annual Attendance Awareness Campaign webinar series. This year’s slogan Stay Connected, Keep Learning! will raise awareness of the enormous power of using chronic absence to achieve our hopes of rebounding from the pandemic. The campaign launch will take place during the April 6 webinar. Schools, working with community partners, can strengthen relationships, social-emotional skills and promote daily attendance routines essential to student learning and well-being. The free, four-part series will emphasize the enormous power of using chronic absence data to recover from challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. Learn more and register today.

Purple Day is an international grassroots effort dedicated to increasing awareness about epilepsy worldwide. Annually on March 26, people in countries around the world are invited to wear purple and host events in support of epilepsy. Join the campaign.

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