The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) joined in partnership with the two nursing faculties that will see third-year nursing students working, two days a week, to assess the health needs of youth within the local school community.
"There's so much correlation between health and education," said Soo Wong, the Scarborough-Agincourt school trustee and nursing professor at Humber who spearheaded the initiative. "Studies show that students who are more healthy tend to be better students."
All the assessment, program planning and delivery will be carried out by the nursing students in co-operation with members of the school community.
More than 100 nursing students gathered at the Scarborough Civic Centre Wednesday morning to hear various guest speakers at the official orientation session.
They were shown data, ranging from family background to suspension rates, collected by the TDSB and Toronto Public Health to learn more about the elementary and high school kids they will be interacting with starting next week.
Kathleen MacMillan, dean of the School of Health Sciences at Humber, said the 800 nursing students currently enrolled in the collaborative nursing degree program with the University of New Brunswick will all have the opportunity to be part of this initiative.
"It's part of the curriculum," said MacMillan, noting it gives the future nurses a sense of what kind of jobs are out there in the world other than in hospitals. "We like to expose the students to all kinds of career opportunities."
Ryerson nursing students Thurga Balasingam, Nada Deri and Kamaru Beyan are eager to start work at their respective placements.
"I'm up for the challenge," said Deri, who likes the idea of interacting with students, parents and teachers. "When you think of nursing, you think about going to hospitals. But this is good because you get to work with the community."
Balasingam agreed, and will be helping teach health education at R.H. King Academy in Scarborough where she grew up.
"It's good to have experience everywhere."