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This course is being offered summer 2003
Information is current as of 7/24/03

The Health Activism elective is a joint Medical School-School of Nursing course.  The course will involve a series of skill-building workshops, and a hands-on community project.  Projects will be completed by small group of nursing, and medical students, in cooperation with a community organization and a faculty mentor.  Community projects will focus on issues of health disparities, environmental justice, and access to care.

1.      Demonstrate a knowledge of the role(s) of health care workers, health care and public health organizations, NGOs, and grassroots community organizations in health activism.  

2.      Work effectively in an interdisciplinary, community-university partnership.  

3.      Describe approaches to identifying community needs, agendas, and resources.  

4.      Demonstrate the skills basic to health activism, such as media advocacy, legislative advocacy, popular education, study circles, working with regulatory bodies, grassroots organizing, and participatory action research.  

Students will work in small, interdisciplinary groups with a faculty mentor and a community organization to complete or make significant progress on a project identified by a community organization.  In addition, students are required to attend one half day of workshops each week of the course, and to meet with their faculty and community mentors at least once per week.  At the end of the course, each small group will present a summary of their project.  Each student will hand in portfolio documenting their experience, and the insights and challenges that emerged for them during the course.  

Over the five weeks, students will be at their practicum sites for 12-15 hours per week. Practicum times will be individually arranged with each site. All students will NOT be expected to be at the practicum site at the same time. For most sites, two students will work together in a group on the  assigned project.  

A practicum seminar will be held each week before OR after class seminar. In the practicum seminar, the small group participants and faculty mentor will meet to dialogue about the practicum, the process of health activism and other items of interest.    

Practicum Sites include:  Women’s Cancer Resource Center , North American Water Office, Transgender Health Care Coalition, and Pro-Choice Resources.    

·        Women's Cancer Resource Center --work here will focus on building resource networks for women experiencing cancer, and on learning about how the Center provides support and advocacy  

·        North American Water Office--their projects focus on the relationships between environmental justice and health, such as the health effects of Prairie Island nuclear plant on the near-by reservation community, and issues of mercury and subsistence fishing.  

·        Transgender Health Care Coalition--this project is focusing on barriers to health care for transgender people, and building a network of health care providers who can provide effective care for transgendered folks.  

·        Pro-Choice Resources—work here will focus on access to reproductive care for immigrant women and women whose first language is not English.

Schedule of topics and presenters (tentative)

July 15 - Orientation, Working with Communities 

July 22 - Media Advocacy, Jeremy Hanson, Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition and Glynnis Shea, Pediatrics and Adolescent Health  

July 29 - Legislative Advocacy, Carol Johnson, Women’s Cancer Resource Center  

August 5 - Grant Writing,  

August 12 - Presentations of Projects, Doing Activism During Your Training and Beyond