Trillium Gift of Life Network

Post Secondary Education Initiatives

Brian Kellow

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Overview: Ontario

• 13 million people• 400,000 post secondary students spread out across the province

but mainly concentrated between Windsor and Ottawa corridor.• No donor registry accessible to Trillium Gift of Life Network.• Fall 2004: No Post Secondary activities happening.

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Our Approach

In the fall of 2004 we decided to follow three specific streams when reaching out to Universities and Colleges. Those streams would be directed at programming in the following realms. 

• 1)      General awareness, not faculty specific,

• 2)      Targeted nursing faculty and nursing students

• 3)      Develop a Clinical Placement in Community Health nursing with a focus in transplantation

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Rationale

Our 3 streams all resulted from a survey of curriculum available to students and an acknowledgment of the geographic, financial and practical restrictions faced by the agency

The focus was placed on University Students for the following reasons:

•      Public Service

•      Relationship changes with parents community.

• Maturation of the mind, evolving notions of citizenship

• Our goal was to create experiential learning programs that would encourage students to take up the role of advocates at each institution.

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Stream 1:Non Faculty Specific

Pilot: Worked with the Career centre of Brock University in St.Catherine's, Ontario

1) Group of 10 students recruited from school. Students spend a day in Toronto touring facilities, meeting practitioners to gain ideas about career choices.

2) Students plan series of awareness activities culminating with a week long event.

3) TGLN provides small funding, speakers, learning opportunities (job shadow, grant application training etc)

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Stream 2:Faculty Specific

Focusing on Nursing Departments:

1) TGLN offers a much more detailed learning opportunity for nursing students and works through a nursing instructor. This may mean students working on a term long group project or other potential research opportunities.

2) Students visit a number of facilities, where possible sit in on procedures (i.e.:cornea recovery) spend time with nurses in the field.

3) In one case students surveyed the nursing class itself to gauge understanding and acceptance. When the surveys revealed a large degree of ignorance the students undertook a project to improve awareness on campus and in their own faculty. 

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Student Action

In response the Students took the following steps:

1)Set information booths, wrote articles for student paper, mounted a poster campaign, placed float in the Homecoming parade.  

2) Lobbied successfully to have a speaker address the class (200 Students). For this TGLN sent a Director, a Coordinator and a Recipient.

3) The students successfully lobbied to have the Organ and Tissue Donation included in future curriculum

4) Have begun work with TGLN and the University clinical placements

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Stream 3: 3rd Year Clinical Placement

Stream 3 is a student placement in Community Health with a focus in Organ and Tissue Donation. This was a joint project with Humber College in Toronto.

1) 10 Students from program choose Organ and Tissue Donation as a subject. 2) Working with Instructor TGLN developed 13 weeks of curriculum3) Assigned the students a meeting room at our offices every Thursday from 9am

to 3pm, students dress in business attire wear name tags etc…4) Each week students visit a facility, interview a stakeholder etc…5) Students conduct extensive literature reviews, brainstorm and then develop a

project plan. 6) Students implement the plan and present findings and outcomes to TGLN at

conclusion of term.   

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The Humber College Project

• The Students:

1) Conducted a surveys of Health Students from multiple disciplines before and after presenting a 30 min instructional piece.

2) Conducted general awareness activities, (Campus Media, booths, games etc)

3) Brought speakers to the Nursing program

4) Compiled the survey results and presented their findings and recommendations to TGLN.

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Conclusion-Lessons learned

At first when I began this process I expected some skepticism from the various labs, tissue banks, physicians, this was not the case. Doctors, Nurses, Specialists were eager to participate.

Persuading the first institution was a challenge, once the original pilot was finished we have had excellent success, in 18 months we have grown the program from 1 post-secondary institution to 12.

These programs are an asset to both the institution and to us as an agency.

The work has to be meaningful, be careful not to underestimate, find unconventional connections (Grant applications…)

Ownership must lie with the students, direct them but let them come to their own conclusions, I give them some starting ideas but after that we play a supportive role.

Pay for catering, watch for fainters!