Healthy Kids Program Expands

December 19, 2007

WINSTON — Dylan Hanson’s hands were coated with germs.

The neon green “germs” on the fourth-grader’s hands were revealed when nurse Ketti Walker waved a black light over his hands and desk after he was given “germ juice” to rub on his hands. Walker uses the glow-in-the-dark liquid and black light to show kids how well, or how poorly, they are washing their hands.

“Oh, my gosh,” Mary Mincher shrieked when she saw her green hands. “OK, now I’m going to wash really good.”

After using the “germ juice,” Walker instructed the McGovern Elementary students to try washing their hands again, keeping in mind the amount of green “germs” they saw on their hands before.

“I think I got it all. I hope so,” said Bridget Hickam as she waited to look at her hands under the black light after washing them. “It looked disgusting.”

Walker was in the Winston classroom Tuesday to teach kids about hand washing and how to prevent the spread of germs. Walker, who has been a nurse for 30 years, joined Mercy Foundation’s Healthy Kids Outreach Program last spring. The program puts nurses in county schools to educate students about health and hygiene. The nurses don’t treat and diagnose students, but if a family is in need of health care, the nurses can direct them to resources around the community.

“Our model is not a traditional school nurse model,” program coordinator Pam Frank said. “We don’t have nurses waiting in a little office, waiting for kids to come their way.”

Walker was hired for the program when it expanded to include Winston-Dillard and Camas Valley schools. Prior to this spring, the program had two nurses who rotated between Days Creek, Riddle, South Umpqua and Glendale schools. The program launched in October 2006 with a $300,000 grant from the foundation.

The addition of the two school districts moves the program closer to its goal to serve all of the county school districts, Frank said. The program is planning needs assessments for North Douglas, Oakland and Yoncalla school districts. Resulting services will take place at the start of the year. The surveys will determine what types of services are needed in each of the districts, what barriers stand in the way and how those obstacles can be overcome to provide care to the students, Frank said. The Roseburg School District and the Mercy Foundation are forming a task force to examine the same issues within the city’s schools.

By the numbers ...
In the year since the Healthy Kids Program launched, the nurses have had:

• More than 2,000 contacts with staff members, which includes direct education to school employees and issues that arise when nurses visit classrooms.

• More than 6,000 contacts with students through one-on-one sessions and classroom presentations.

• More than 1,700 contacts with parents through a school’s open house, one-on-one meetings or phone calls with nurses.

“Before too long we’re going to have a presence in all of Douglas County and right now we’re making plans and figuring out how that can be done,” Frank said.

The program acquired a Dodge Sprinter van that it is turning into a mobile medical unit. The entire program is run on grants and donations, so the amount of contributions to the program will determine if a nurse practitioner or doctor is hired to run the mobile medic unit, or if it is operated by doctors who donate their time. The van will be equipped with foldout exam tables, counters, sinks, filing systems and a generator, Frank said.

Frank also hopes the program can eventually add more nurses. Additions would ensure that one nurse is not covering multiple districts and can instead focus on a single area. Now the nurses rotate between all of the districts they cover, giving lessons in multiple classrooms of all grade levels each week.

The topics of lessons cover all aspects of health and hygiene, from brushing teeth and hair, to putting on deodorant and getting exercise. Walker said she tries to make lessons hands-on and creative so the students will retain what they learn. At McGovern Elementary, Dylan had no trouble reciting the characteristics of the “germs” he found on his hands during the lesson with a black light.

“Germs are not good looking,” he said. “They’re ugly. They smell bad. They look like boogers. They’re hard to get off. You have to wash them with hot to warm water; I think it kills ‘em.”