Armstrong Presentation about UNE collaboration with the Cumberland County Jail

1. Stronger When Combined:
Interprofessional Service Learning
at the County Jail
Kerry Dunn, JD, PHD, MSW
Shelley Cohen Konrad, PhD, LCSW, FNAP
Kris Hall, MFA
April 10, 2015
Interprofessional Health Care Summit
Armstrong State University

2. • Urban and Oceanside Campuses
• 13 Health Professions; 8085
• Educates Majority of Maine’s
Health Professionals
• Robust IPE Infrastructure
IPE Collaborative
Center for Excellence
Core IPE Curriculum &
Classrooms
Signature Events
IP Team Immersion
Student-led Mini-Grants
IP Honors Distinction
IP Service Learning
IP Grants
Clinical Education Sites
IP Faculty Development
IPCP Community Summits

3. • Translate and implement IPEC
Competencies into community-
based practices
• Expose students to
community-based practice and
service in a range of settings
with vulnerable, underserved
and marginalized populations
• Prepare students for work with
a broader teamwork paradigm
Multiple workers from different professional and service
backgrounds providing comprehensive health and health-
related services working with individuals, families, caregivers and
communities to deliver the highest quality of care across settings
Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice WHO, 2010

4. IPE Service Learning: Objectives
• Enhance critical and reflective learning through
hands on, community-based activities.
• Apply interprofessional knowledge and skills to
real life situations.
• Gain lived knowledge of others’ professional roles
and scopes of practice
• Achieve a sense of civic and social responsibility
through community partnerships.
(Kolomer, Quinn, & Steele, 2010)

5. UNE-CCJ Collaboration
• Over 100 UNE students and 10 faculty, engaging in health and
wellness projects at the Cumberland County Jail
• Projects designed by students, inmates, jail staff, and faculty
working together to identify ways to use university resources
to address needs at CCJ

6. Cumberland County Jail
Current population: 450
Budget: $14,335,838; Staff: 200

7. Health Challenges in Jails
Jail inmates have higher than average rates of:
oCommunicable disease (MRSA, TB, Hep B&C)
oHIV/AIDS
oChronic disease (diabetes, hypertension,
asthma)
oMental Illness
oAddiction
oSuicide risk

8. Security v. Rehabilitation
oFew education opportunities for inmates
oMinimal health, dental, and mental health
services
oLimited preparation
for re-entry
oShort length of stay
oSignificant fiscal
restraints

9. Inside-Out Classroom Model:
Transformation
• “Inside-Out” model: college and inmate students study issues
of crime and justice as peers.
• Designed to create a ‘safe enough’ environment for the
expression of multiple perspectives, experiences, and agendas
(Pompa, 2005).

10. Learning With and From in Context
• Distinctive Learning Elements:
• Absence of personal freedom enforced by institutional culture
• Students experience restrictions & jail customs
• Stereotypes and stigma
• Political nature of crime policy and controversial role of prisons in
U.S. society.
• Learning Outcomes:
• Greater affective
understanding of the
experiences, challenges, &
needs of incarcerated people
• Firsthand experience of
health disparities.

11. IPE Faculty Challenges
• Acknowledgement that respect is earned one
encounter at a time.
• Meet curricular needs in a way that does not
exploit the inmates for the benefit of student
learning.
• Recognition that students are engaged in an
interactive cultural immersion experience with
individuals whose life circumstances may be
markedly different from their own.
• Acknowledgement of faculty assumptions and
biases.
• Necessary Debriefing

12. UNE-CCJ Collaboration
PROCESS
Collaboration Mutual BenefitDialogue

13. WWW at CCJ
(Weekly Wellness Workshops)
• Health Education
(Hygiene; Stress)
• Support Groups
• Exercise Training
Social Work, Nursing,
Physician Assistant & Physical
& Occupational Therapy

14. Evaluation and Refinement
• Evaluation based on participatory action
research principles “look-think-act” loop
(Stringer, 1999).
• Students and inmates “look” at the issues
together, they “think” about solutions, “act”
to implement their solution, then “look” at
the results.
• From 2013-2014 students debriefed the final
“look” portion of the “look-think-act loop”
(1) a whole-group debriefing session
(2) completion of open-ended surveys.

15. Engaged IPE Learning

16. Student Transformation
• The health and social disparities faced by people
incarcerated at the jail – cultural knowledge.
• Awareness of “… the diversity that exists among inmates -
their backgrounds, social status, education, and family
lives.”
• Confidence in the ability to collectively address these
disparities; change is possible – “break the cycle”
• Value of learning and working in interprofessional teams;
broadened definition of teamwork and team membership.
Students not only saw inmates as human but the complexity of their
humanness.

17. References
• Kolomer, S., Quinn, M. E. & Steele, K. (2010). Interdisciplinary
Health Fairs for Older Adults and the Value of
Interprofessional Service Learning. Journal of Community
Practice, 18(2-3), 267-279.
• Pompa, L. (2005). Service-learning as crucible: Reflections on
immersion, context, power, and transformation. In D.W. Butin
(Ed.), Service learning in higher education. New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan.
• Stringer, E.T. (1999). Action Research 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
• World Health Organization (2010). Framework for Action on
Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice.
Washington, D. C., National Academies Press.

18. Kerry Dunn: kdunn5@une.edu
Shelley Cohen Konrad: scohenkonrad@une.edu
Kris Hall: chall4@une.edu
http://www.une.edu/wchp/ipec/ceipe