Moms Who Care & Yellow Roses

It's a good day when...
Someone brings you flowers!

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Hopefully Helpful School Nurse Tip:  I've said it before & I'll say it again- Working with Moms Who Care is the best! Not only do they care about my students, but they care about me too! I'm blessed beyond words to work with this group of great volunteers.

I've received these yellow roses compliments of a former school board member and current Moms Who Care volunteer!

She said they are a Thank You for all of the hard work I do :)

She is sweet.... She works hard herself too and is greatly appreciated.

THANKS ANNIE!

Lillian Wald and The History of School Nursing

The beginning of school nursing.

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Helpful School Nurse Tip: Did you know school nursing began as an experiment? One nurse. Over 8,600 students. A 90% reduction in absenteeism. Read the remarkable story of how Lillian Wald helped shape the profession we know today.

How did it become that a nurse was needed to work in the school setting so many years ago?

Lillian Wald was a public health nurse who believed healthcare should reach people where they lived, learned, and worked. Through the Henry Street Settlement in New York City, she focused on prevention, health education, and improving the well-being of underserved families.

As schools became recognized as important centers of community life, Wald saw an opportunity to improve children's health by bringing nursing directly into the school setting. She advocated for hiring Lina Rogers, who became New York City's first school nurse in 1902.

The results were remarkable. During the first year of the program, student absenteeism dropped by nearly 90%, proving that school nurses could make a meaningful difference in both student health and school attendance. Because of the program's success, New York City quickly expanded school nursing services.

More than 120 years later, Wald's vision continues to shape our profession. School nurses still promote health, remove barriers to learning, and help students stay healthy, in school, and ready to learn.

the history of school nursing

School Nursing Started As An Experiment

It's hard to imagine today, but school nursing began with a simple experiment.

In 1902, New York City hired one school nurse, Lina Rogers, to care for 8,671 students in four public schools. Lillian Wald believed that many children were missing school because of preventable or manageable health concerns, and she wanted to see if having a nurse in the schools could make a difference.

The nurse's responsibilities were straightforward:

• Assess students who became ill or injured at school.
• Exclude students when necessary to help prevent the spread of illness.
• Follow up with families to make sure students received the care they needed.
• Help students return to school as soon as it was safe to do so.

The results exceeded everyone's expectations.

Within just one school year, student absenteeism decreased by nearly 90%. The experiment was so successful that New York City quickly hired 25 additional school nurses, forever changing the future of school health services.

More than 120 years later, our responsibilities have expanded tremendously. Today's school nurses manage chronic health conditions, respond to emergencies, support student mental health, coordinate care, promote public health, and collaborate with families, educators, and healthcare providers.

But the heart of our profession hasn't changed.

We're still helping students stay healthy, in school, and ready to learn.

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Free Samples for School Nurses!

Updated 6/6/2023

Free Playtex Samples!

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Hopefully Helpful School Nurse Tip: This post was originally written in 2015. At that time school nurses could email free.samples@havasimpact.com and request FREE Playtex samples be sent to their schools. I'm updating this post in 2023 and I'm not sure if those free samples from HavasImpact still exist. I have emailed, but I haven't heard back yet. So, I will also share about my DonorsChoose Period Poverty project that was recently fully funded!

2015- A parade of free tampons & liners made it's way into 
my office this morning and we were thrilled!

Earlier this school year we ran out of tampon samples 

and we only had pads available for the girls- some girls would be very disappointed.  Great news though- earlier that school year we were contacted by the Teen Essentials program asking if we would be interested in receiving Playtex Sport Combo pack to share with our active female students involved in school sports activities.

Of course we were interested & we've been patiently waiting for the delivery since the call!

The wait is over; 5 cased of pads and tampons arrived today! 

Each case contained many sample boxes (I didn't count) with 2 tampons and 2 sport ultra thin pads with wings & coupons too for the girls to use.

Good Luck! 

2023 UPDATE- Free samples of any kind are hard to find!

I'm sharing the resources I've used with success and hoping you can too...

  

Thank me by buying me a coffee!