Willimantic and Danielson Health Education Evenings

Overview:

Health education and promotion activities take place evenings during supper. Guests of the soup kitchens are generally homeless and/or very low-income earners, who may have a mental illness and/or substance abuse problem. The program provides guests with consistent messages to promote accessing health care and increase self-awareness around healthy choices. At the same time, the program offers health professions students with an opportunity to work with this medically underserved population and become familiar with health literacy issues and how poverty impacts health.

Program Initiatives:

• Health professions students identify and develop a monthly schedule of relevant health education topics for presentations during the supper time period for soup kitchen guests. Health presentations are scheduled two Fridays of every month, while the remaining Friday evenings are devoted to an interdisciplinary student-run medical clinic.
• Health presentations may include handouts, posters, demonstration models, and a health screening or activity. Students ensure that educational materials are language and literacy level appropriate. Students may also request small amounts of money or goods from local stores to support giving clients health products related to the topic (e.g. hygiene products, hats and gloves, socks, laundry detergent, etc).
• Students also recruit and schedule two or three other health professions students to assist in presenting health education topics and/or to socialize with guests. On evenings when a clinic is being held, these students will help to manage the flow of patients and engage them to wait for their appointment.
• Throughout a given semester, students arrange and facilitate at least three health screenings on non-clinic nights, such as blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, HIV, etc. with health professions students and/or community outreach workers from local agencies.
• Finally, students create and distribute post-education surveys to assess the soup kitchen guests’ attitudes and behavior related to presented health topics. The questions are designed to check for retention and behavior change, and to identify any future health education and/or screening needs.