Milwaukee: Public Schools Works with Local Nursing Schools

The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Asthma Grant has been working with our very busy school nurses to provide asthmatic students with instruction in asthma management. No matter how we structured the classes, or adapted the instruction, the nurses were only able to reach a portion of the students supported by our grant.

Through a joint effort with the MPS nursing supervisors, we reached out to two local universities (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Alverno) that had nursing programs and asked if they would be interested in field experience placements for their nursing students to assist MPS schools with this asthma instruction. They were very interested and asked if we would be willing to train the nursing students to deliver our asthma education curriculum. We collaborated with Fight Asthma Milwaukee Allies to train 24 student nurses, and they are now working in pairs teaching this valuable educational program in 12 of our asthma grant schools. We have had very positive feedback from the MPS nurses, the student nurses, and have been approached by the universities about expanding the program next year.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Bruce Dreyer
Milwaukee Public Schools
dreyerbg@milwaukee.k12.wi.us
www.wellnessandpreventionoffice.org/asthma.html#ue