Weekly Digest
NASN news & updates
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Virtual Hill Days Start Tuesday |
NASN invites you to take action with other school nurses around the country on June 14, 15, and 16, 2022! NASN’s Virtual Hill Days create momentum and show support for crucial legislation to help keep children safe, healthy, and ready to learn.
Please tweet, email, and call your Congress Members and Senators using the sample messages in the NASN toolkit!
Stakeholders need to know why school nurses are essential. Children’s health and learning are forever linked.
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NEA SISP Fellowship Journal Entry: Medicaid and Schools |
Sheila Caldwell, BSN, RN, CSN-NJ, NASN member, and NASN SchoolNurseNet All Member Forum & School Nurse-Open Forum Community Administrator, was selected by the National Education Association (NEA) as their first specialized instructional support personnel (SISP) Fellow for the 2021-22 school year. In her latest NEA SISP Fellowship Journal entry, full of important information and resources, she details how a White House visit leads to an education on Medicaid funding and other opportunities for students.
"Most importantly, the 'Healthy Schools Campaign' has been the leading force of advocacy. They released a new website that provides Medicaid-eligible school nursing and behavioral health services providers in each state. Take a look at all the information and share it. Schools should be looking at all the components of services, especially with the need for increased mental health and nursing services in schools."
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Article: Many Children Aren’t Getting Needed Vision Screening
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The CDC estimates that more than 600,000 children and teens are blind or have a vision disorder. A recent opinion article published on JAMA Network notes that a large number of these children could be helped simply with glasses, but because of high costs and lack of insurance coverage, many are not getting them.
Kate King, NASN President-elect and School Nurse at World Language Middle School for Columbus City Schools, Ohio, said that students’ vision problems were being overlooked even before the pandemic. Of all the optometrist referrals she sends home, she said just about 15 percent of children are taken to an eye doctor without her having to reach out to parents again. “An overwhelming majority actually don’t follow up and don’t get a comprehensive exam,” King said.
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NASN Member Benefit: VSP Vision™ Eyes of Hope® (formerly Sight for Students) is a program that provides school nurses with gift certificates for a no-cost eye exam and, if prescribed, new glasses that NASN members can distribute to students who qualify. Thanks to our partnership, more than 470,000 students have received the vision care they need to succeed in school and achieve their full potential. Learn more and get the enrollment form.
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Healthy Children Learn Better, Healthy School Nurses Make It Happen |
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School nurses experience a LOT of stress. NASN continues to be interested in reaching out to the Healthy School Nurse community with suggested strategies to support the energy and resiliency of school nurses. The Healthy School Nurse Community in SchoolNurseNet provides a place where you can discuss how you model healthy living. Check out the latest blog on Mind-Body Skills and continue to follow all month long for more! Community involvement and support can help school nurses adapt and take on challenges as they arise. We hope you will join us and share any wellness tools or information you find helpful.
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Identification of Workload Measurement Indicators for School Nursing |
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Many school districts rely on caseload or student-to-school nurse ratios that are not grounded in evidence-based research. There is a need for a comprehensive workload instrument to describe the work of school nurses that incorporates the complexities of the role and includes acuity, care processes, and social determinants of health.
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Article: Supporting LGBTQ+ Students: A Focus Group Study with Junior High School Nurses
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LBGTQ+ students often miss the support and information they need in school, but little is known about junior high school (JHS) nurses’ work with LGBTQ+ students. In this article, in The Journal of School Nursing, 15 JHS nurses were interviewed in focus groups about their perceptions of supporting LGBTQ+ students. The study findings created an understanding of how JHS nurses self-identified as health professionals who can offer significant support to LGBTQ+ students.
Supporting LGBTQ+ students is a complex phenomenon. To enhance JHS nurses’ competence in providing care for these students, sexual and gender diversity needs to be included in evidence-based nursing information sources, covered in nursing education, and the school needs to be secured as LBGTQ+ safe place.
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School Nurses in the News |
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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.
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Updated Definition of “Up to Date” on COVID Vaccines |
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CDC has updated the definition of "up to date" in its Clinical Guidance for COVID-19 Vaccination to include a booster dose. “People aged 5 years and older are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines when they have received all doses in the primary series and all booster doses recommended for them, when eligible.”
- Children ages 5 through 11 years who are moderately or severely immunocompromised should receive a total of 4 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to stay up to date. The 4 doses include a primary series of 3 doses, plus 1 booster (4th dose).
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People ages 12 years and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised should receive a total of 5 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to stay up to date. The 5 doses include a primary series of 3 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, plus 2 boosters of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Learn more.
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Updated CDC Guidance for Schools, Early Care, and Education Programs |
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CDC and the Department of Education held a webinar on Wednesday, June 1, during which experts from the CDC provided an overview of the updated guidance.
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New CDC Resources: Promoting COVID Vaccines for Children and Teens |
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As children and teens continue to get vaccinated against COVID-19, CDC is excited to share new resources to promote the COVID-19 vaccine for children and teens for families, vaccine providers, and partners. A new website for parents and caregivers includes information on COVID-19 vaccination for children and adolescents. Two new fact sheets are available in nine languages that can be printed and shared. In addition, a list of resources for vaccine providers is available to help support conversations with families about vaccination and highlight ways to improve vaccine accessibility for children, including those with disabilities and special healthcare needs. Jurisdictions, community partners, vaccine providers, and others can visit COVID-19 Vaccination for Children for up-to-date information and resources to help inform planning for pediatric vaccination. Please share these resources and updates with your network of providers, partners, and families.
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Mayo Clinic COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker |
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School nurses are actively monitoring vaccine uptake for student populations. The Mayo Clinic has a resource to identify U.S. COVID-19 vaccine rates by state. This resource also reports U.S. COVID-19 vaccine rates by age. Learn more.
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Know Your COVID-19 Community Level |
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COVID-19 Community Levels is a 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.
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Attending In-Person NASN2022? Get savings at Atlanta's restaurants and shops!
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Can't make it in person this year? No worries, we've got you covered! NASN2022 offers two separate learning events to meet the needs of all school nurses amid pandemic health, travel, and economic concerns.
Virtual NASN2022 gives you the flexibility to learn from anywhere and provides exclusive content, featuring different sessions and speakers than the in-person event. The virtual schedule is a mix of sessions streamed in real-time with a live speaker Q&A immediately following each session and additional sessions you can view on your own time. Join us for the Virtual Conference with presentations on topics including:
- School Nurse Competencies Reimagined: Strategies for Meaningful Competency Assessment in School Nursing
- Long COVID-The New "Invisible Illness"
- Developing Clinical Practice Guidelines and Creating a Toolkit for Students with Type 1 Diabetes
- Amplifying School Nursing Leadership through Connecting Health Equity & Student Success.
Whether you join us In-Person, Virtually, or Bundle the two events, you're investing in your future. Get answers, get inspired, and have fun with like-minded people at a time when we truly need each other!
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Managing Chronic Health Conditions |
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Medication Administration in Schools Implementation Toolkit
School nurses care for 56.4 million students across the United States, 25 percent of whom have chronic conditions, many of whom require medication during the school day. Other students require medication for acute health problems, life-threatening emergencies, or as needed for transient health issues, discomfort, or other symptoms.
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Improving School Community & Student Health |
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Give Kids a Healthy Body and Mind This Summer |
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Just as physical activity, good nutrition, and positive social experiences are important for children's success during the school year, families can encourage those same behaviors throughout the summer months. CDC Healthy Schools offers fun and easy summer activities to maintain children's mental, physical, and emotional health throughout the school year and all summer long.
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Want to set a goal to get more physical activity? Discover a list of indoor and outdoor activities and games to try.
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Want to make smarter food choices? Check out the apps and resources to learn about nutrition and fun ways to try something new.
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Want to build more positive thoughts and relationships? Find ideas for things your kids can do alone or with others.
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Bonnie Strickland Champion for Children’s Vision Award 2022 |
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The Bonnie Strickland Champion for Children’s Vision Award recognizes significant efforts by an individual or group of individuals to improve public health approaches for children’s vision and eye health at the state or national level. School nurses are encouraged to share this announcement with colleagues and nominate an individual or groups who seek out new and innovative solutions to barriers to healthy vision in children. Applications for the award are due August 1, 2022. Get the award nomination form and instructions.
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CDC's Clean Hands and Spaces Training Release |
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Good hygiene practices are an important strategy to keep everyone healthy in schools. School-based programs promoting hand hygiene can also result in fewer missed school days. The CDC and the CDC Foundation have developed this free, interactive, and bilingual online training on hand hygiene and cleaning specifically for school nurses, educators, administrators, and supporting personnel in K-12 schools. As we continue to focus on the importance of in-person education, let’s all work together to promote clean and healthy spaces for the safety of our kids and community. Get started with the training.
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Across the United States, there are a variety of childhood lead exposure sources and risk factors. Children who live in households at or below the federal poverty level and those who live in housing built before 1978 are at the greatest risk of lead exposure. Learn more.
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Virtual Hill Days 2022
June 14-16
Your participation in NASN’s Virtual Hill Days will show the groundswell of support that school nurses have across the country. Please tweet, email, and call your Congress Members and Senators using NASN's Virtual Hill Days Toolkit.
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NASN Annual Conference:
IN-PERSON NASN2022
June 28-30
To register or participate in person, you must:
- Register by June 6, 2022. No onsite registration will be offered in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Acknowledge that you have read and that you agree to the “Health and Safety Protocols.”
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NASN Annual Conference:
VIRTUAL NASN2022
July 11-13 (online)
Some of the content will be streamed in real time during the conference schedule. This content will also be recorded and available to view through October 14, 2022.
NOTE: This event includes additional "anytime" or on-demand sessions that attendees can begin viewing on the first day of VIRTUAL NASN2022.
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State Associations of School Nurses' Conferences |
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School Nurse Organization of Idaho Annual Conference - Back to Basics - June 14-15 - Learn more
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Indiana Association of School Nurses Annual Conference - Indiana School Nurses: Moving Forward with Courage and Compassion - June 15-16 - Learn more and register
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Mississippi School Nurse Association Conference - Transformation: MS School Nurses Emerging with a Renewed Vision of School Health - July 11-13 - Learn more and Register
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South Dakota School Nurse Association 29th Annual Conference - School Nurses Riding the Waves - July 12-13 - Learn more and register
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Vermont State School Nurses Association (VSSNA): Working Together Conference - Sponsored by VSSNA & University of Vermont Medical Center Nurse Educators - August 24 - Learn more and register
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NASN Calendar of Events
This calendar includes upcoming events hosted by NASN and NASN affiliate school nurse organizations. Access the calendar.
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National Health Observances Calendar
This calendar lists special days, weeks, or months dedicated to raising awareness about important health topics. Access the 2021 calendar.
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Acceptance of advertising on the ad banner in this newsletter or resource information listed within in no way implies endorsement of advertised or listed products or services by NASN. No endorsement is intended or implied.
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