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The focus of our project for the Champlain Hospice Palliative Care Program (CHPCP) is to understand the informational needs of individuals experiencing grief and bereavement and analyze the pamphlets currently distributed by the organization. The purpose of the project is to provide recommendations to the organization on improving the existing pamphlets and how to implement it into their program.

creating a survey to evaluate community needs of those living with diabetes in Ottawa.

Our purpose was to create an up-to-date list of breastfeeding, circumcision, and tongue-tie resources within the Ottawa region. This verified list will help Ottawa Public Health nurses refer breastfeeding parents and families with newborns to proper services based on their needs and different criteria. We contacted various service providers around Ottawa by email or phone to verify critical information about how to assess these services. Once we verified each service, we compiled our information into a comprehensive and organized document which will eventually be added to the Ottawa Public Health Healthy Growth and Development Wiki page. The nurses use this Wiki page to find evidence-informed information, resources and services for their clients.

Our project took place at Sandy Hill Community Health Centre from September 12, 2023, to December 5, 2023. We were tasked with planning and implementing a catch-up immunization program for adults aged 65 and older who had missed their Shingrix and Pneumovax 23 vaccinations. Decreased vaccine uptake became more significant in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is worrisome as older adults are at increased risk of pneumonia and shingles. Our responsibilities included:

• Researching the diseases (Shingles and Pneumococcal infections) and their impact on health.
• Gaining a thorough understanding of the vaccines (Shingrix and Pneumococcal 23).
• Addressing vaccine hesitancy.
• Collecting patient data for individuals aged 65 and older who hadn’t received these vaccinations.
• Conducting phone outreach to book vaccination appointments.
• Administering vaccines to clients.

This project aimed to increase immunization rates among this age group, reduce the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, and contribute to the overall health and well-being of our clients and the community.

We interviewed families who partook in a perinatal parent support program to determine its effect on their parenting knowledge and compared survey data from the past year, with the goal of helping to improve the program.

The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre’s Prompt Clinic (The Prompt Clinic) tasked University of Ottawa nursing students to develop a client survey. This survey’s purpose was to receive feedback on the clinic’s ability to provide a safe space for people seeking mental health treatment to improve outcomes and patient satisfaction. This is the first time the Prompt Clinic has received any feedback on the care provided. Participants expressed their thoughts on how they were treated at the clinic and any barriers they encountered. Working together with nurses and coordinators of the Prompt Clinic, the students developed a 5-minute survey. The students met every Tuesday from September 12th, 2023 to December 5th, 2023 to develop this survey.

We have been working with Compassionate Ottawa for our community nursing placement. They offer grief and bereavement workshops to members of the community to help them understand the concept of grief, the grieving process, and how to interact with those who are grieving. We have helped them develop a survey that will be sent to participants after 3 months to evaluate the content of the workshop and how participants feel related to their knowledge and comfort surrounding the topic and grief.

Food insecurity is a significant issue in our community, and with the increasing economic inequities in Ottawa, it has become a challenge for many to afford healthy food. The Parkdale Food Center’s Mino’Wessini location is a non-traditional food bank that offers a grocery program using a choice model of food distribution to be able to offer their clients, uniquely called “neighbours”, a traditional grocery experience. Mino’Wessini only offers healthy, nutritious options to their neighbours, following the recommendations from the Canada’s Food Guide. In 2020, the Parkdale Food Center developed an in-house points system where this food is “priced” with points and each family is allocated a certain amount of points per month, based on the number of people in their household. With these points, the neighbours are able to “buy” the groceries and have the freedom to decide what and how much they want. The original points system was developed using Ottawa Public Health’s Nutritious Food Basket recommendations for the average monthly cost of groceries. The Algonquin College BScN students were tasked with evaluating this point-system and providing recommendations to better reflect the current prices in grocery stores, nutritional guides and community needs.

We completed our practicum at Cornerstone an organization that provides supportive housing for women. Over the course of our placement we participated in a variety of events such as painting, carving pumpkins, and making ice-cream sundaes in order to build rapport with the residents. We collected primary data through interviews in order to find an issue on which to build our intervention off of. We identified anger management as something the residents were looking for support with. We then created and successfully implemented a workshop that highlighted tools and strategies to use when coping with anger.