Community Connections
Reaching out into the local, regional, national, and international community provides students with hands-on training while allowing the School of Nursing to serve those in need of medical care. Important community connections such as the Neighborhood Wellness Center, federal traineeships, mission trips, clinics for the homeless, the Spiritual Care Research Network, and the Pediatric Neurodevelopment Institute afford opportunities for educational growth on many levels.
Neighborhood Wellness Center
The Neighborhood Wellness Center (NWC) opened its doors in September 1998, and emerged as a joint effort between the city of Azusa and Azusa Pacific University’s School of Nursing to provide health education and care to more than 43,000 Azusa residents. The center promotes healthy living among the local community through free seminars, referrals, screenings, and assessments, as well as sponsors a women’s health fair with the American Cancer Society. The center allows students to assume a professional role in conducting assessments and screenings. The School of Nursing faculty can choose to include the center as a component of a student’s education experience while at APU.
For those Azusa residents unable to visit the NWC, the center holds clinics in community residential areas. The center is open Tuesday and Thursday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. For further information, please contact Susan Smith at susansmith@apu.edu or call (626) 812-5191.
Mission Opportunities
The university and School of Nursing frequently sponsor or host missions trips for students both locally and internationally. Health missions to Mexico, Uganda, and Haiti have provided direct patient care. The School of Nursing faculty have also conducted educational health missions to Korea and Russia.
Clinics for the Homeless
The faculty and students of the Family Nurse Practitioner Program, in cooperation with a local shelter, provide health care for homeless people in the San Gabriel Valley during the winter months.
Spiritual Care Research Network
For several years, the School of Nursing has provided leadership in the development of spiritual care research studies. The school has sponsored a number of spiritual care research institutes and conferences that support faculty and graduate students from across the globe by helping them develop research ideas and tools. In addition, faculty and students are given an opportunity to present findings from their completed studies. Some topics of study include the process by which nursing students learn to provide spiritual care to patients and the practice of spiritual care by nurses in acute care, chronic care, and parish nursing.
Pediatric Neurodevelopment Institute
The Pediatric Neurodevelopment Institute (PNI) is a multidisciplinary diagnostic, treatment, and research center for children and adolescents with learning challenges, children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties, gifted children and adolescents, and those with special physical needs. The institute serves as a resource for ongoing interdisciplinary research, training, and education for faculty and students in the schools of Behavioral and Applied Sciences, Education, and Nursing at Azusa Pacific University.
