COVID-19 Nursing Virtual Outreach

Serving the Upstate community during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Authors: Ting O’Regan & Dani Wills

Seeking to serve the Upstate community during the Covid-19 pandemic, two Senior nursing students, Ting O’Regan and Dani Wills partnered with Nursing Instructor Latasha Gooden, the Charles Lea Center, and Palladium Hospice & Palliative Care to initiate the Covid-19 Virtual Interaction Outreach Program. Starting in May 2020, the program affords students a chance to connect with staff and individuals within the residential care facilities, providing comfort and emotional support and as we enhance our active listening and therapeutic communication skills.

For each session, we work to discover residents’ interests, then brainstorm and collaborate to create presentations and games to actively engage the residents, including (so far) physical fitness and wheelchair exercises, music therapy, virtual jeopardy games, the power of art, online book readings, arts and crafts with maracas, Chinese and Spanish language basics, and stress management. Residents, students and faculty all benefit as we smile, laugh, interact and actively communicate. Working with the staff and residents at Charles Lea to learn about some of their favorite things like art, music and wrestling and bringing these to life through interactive games, and videos, has been an amazing experience. We have loved bridging the gap between virtual and reality, offering interaction during this pandemic. We have been honored to participate in the MBSON COVID-19 interaction program and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the genuine and kind people: both residents and staff.

These virtual sessions ran for an hour each week during the summer and now continue, transitioning into once per month meetings during the Fall & Spring.

Official Note

Mrs. Gooden, observes that our program is "in alignment with the MBSON’s mission & core values of caring, civility, integrity, and innovation." And she adds, "I am truly proud, honored, and grateful for USC Upstate, the MBSON, and our dedicated, motivated and diligent students." 

Invitation

The residents, faculty, and students strive for each session to be a fun-filled learning experience to reinforce nursing concepts and to provide necessary practice of these crucial skills. We encourage any interested Nursing student (for now, this is Nursing only) to join in these sessions. For more information, please contact Mrs. Gooden @ lgooden@uscupstate.edu.  

Community Partner Voices with Photos

On August 5th, participants enjoyed a virtual beach party with beach trivia, props and individualized prizes catering to the interest of each resident. Here are some photos with two comments from residents