All content and cases will be related to how school nurses have and should be supporting their school to navigate the myriad of health and safety requirements that schools have had to implement to protect their students, staff and community.

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

• Fully understand the role of a school nurse,
• Learn what it takes to become a competent school nurse, 
• Understand how to establish clear policies and procedures for the school, 
• Develop skills for communicating with teachers, school administrators, other departments, and disciplines such as local health authorities. 

School nurses are often left alone to perform their duties without much support. This workshop focuses on how school nurses can take the initiative in engaging the school community in communications and collaboration with governmental organizations.

Based on extensive research, we have developed a model for virtual professional development that will:

• Enable participants to learn at their own pace using a mix of content delivery methods to meet the needs of various learning styles and preferences, including but not limited to: Lecture, case studies, role plays, discussions, video productions, reading assignments;
• Challenge participants to apply knowledge and tools introduced throughout the program to their own working context;
• Connect participants to process content collectively and share unique experiences and perspectives in small and large groups; and
• Demonstrate understanding of knowledge and tools by having peers review assignments and presentations.

Module 1: Role of a School Nurse 
The health and safety of students to a great extent falls under the responsibility of the teaching staff. However, school nurses play an important role in guiding school administrators and teaching faculty toward that vision. It is vital for the nurses to understand their roles and to know what it takes to contribute to the school’s mission.

1. Understand the role of a school nurse and characteristics for leading in that role
2. Teaching role: conducting seminars with the focus on health prevention and health promotion as well as essential training sessions, e.g., first aid training for students, parents, teachers, and others in the school

Module 2: Practices of a School Nurse
School nurses are often left alone to manage their area. It is absolutely critical to develop policies and procedures to meet the school’s mission and to be in compliance with the local/international health protocol. They also need to have adequate resources to meet the needs of the students. With the Pandemic, school nurses have to learn to deal with new ways of doing things

1. Policies, Procedures and Referrals
2. New Normal – The Effects of the Pandemic

Module 3: Communications
In addition to taking care of students, school nurses spend a great deal of their time communicating with parents and local health agencies/other health organizations. In this module, participants will learn some interpersonal communication and cross-cultural communication skills, as parents are often upset and nervous upon hearing their children have been hurt. This problem compounds when the parents are from a different culture. In addition, school nurses will be required to work with other school departments. 

1. Interpersonal communication skills – participants will develop some basic knowledge and skills around human communications. Such knowledge and skills include active listening, clarity of speaking, and motivation. 
2. Cross-cultural communication skills – participants will learn about cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity when working with parents, students, and colleagues from different cultural backgrounds.  

Module 4: Thriving in an International School Environment
Working in an international school is different from working in a clinic, hospital, or even local school clinic. International schools have their unique characteristics. Fitting in can be a challenge. The first half of the module discusses what school nurses can do to perform well in their roles in international schools. The second half of the module is to provide an opportunity for the school nurses or their supervisors to network with each other and exchange information and ideas. 

1. Book discussion – Preparing Host Country Support Staff for their Roles in International Schools. The participants will learn about the desirable characteristics of a local support staff working in an international school and will identify practices to effectively work well with foreign colleagues and parents. 
2. Job A-Like Session

Anita Tsang and Henry Wong

Anita Tsang Ngan Lai Yu has been a registered nurse since 1984. She obtained her Bachelor of Nursing Degree (Health Promotion and Health Education) at the University of Hong Kong in 2002. Her extensive nursing experience in various nursing fields, both in private and public sectors, including but not limited to emergency room service at the Caritas Medical Center, pediatric surgical ward at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital; medical ward at the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, family medicine at the Hong Kong US Consulate and private practice with family physicians and pediatricians and more recently school nursing at various International Schools.  Her wealth of nursing experience also brought her into the nurse educator area. 

Since 2010, she has become the part time instructor for The Hong Kong Open University, help comprising and teaching relevant nursing related curriculums.  In addition to general nursing, she also has a special interest in providing first aid training to health care professionals and lay people.  She is a qualified First Aid Instructor with First Aid International (U.K) since 2008, in the past years, she successfully delivered first aid course to help equip people to deal with various emergency situations pertinent to their needs.  Anita is bilingual; her unique multi-faceted working experience in the nursing field enables her to leverage her nursing skills in a dynamic way. She recently completed her master degree in Nursing (Child and Adolescent Health) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Her experience in International School Nursing began in 2000 and has included working at the following school: Hong Kong International School, Chinese International School, Canadian International School of Hong Kong and the Independent School Foundation, where she is currently employed.

Henry Wong, in addition to being an accomplished editor on interpersonal relationships, he is one of the few administrators that have served in both academic and non-academic roles in a school. He has more than sixteen years of work experience in international schools based in Singapore, China, and the US. His administrative positions have included Senior Admissions and Marketing Manager, Business Administration Director and Co-head.

Henry worked in three international schools and two bilingual schools with student populations ranging from 250 to 1300. His responsibility in the international schools was to oversee and provide leadership for non-academic functions, which included the Admissions & Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Public Relations, IT Help Desk, Facilities Management, Auxiliary Services, Procurement, and Inventory departments. These schools had very culturally diverse teaching and family populations. All the schools are accredited by associations of schools and colleges (US) and the three international schools are authorized by IBO. He published a booklet titled, "Preparing Host Country Support Staff for their Roles in International Schools."

In less than two years, Henry raised the service standards of his support staff to a level that equals to best practices of great international schools. The majority of his departments and offices received more than 90% of customer satisfaction from parents and teachers. Three offices obtained a 100% customer satisfaction over three consecutive years.

Henry obtained his bachelor’s degree at Biola University, California, majoring in Organizational Leadership. After acquiring his master’s degrees in Education at Pepperdine University, and Intercultural Studies with an emphasis in International Business at Biola University, he took up an instructor position at Tianjin University of Technology in China. He taught two subjects – Intercultural Communication and International Trade. In addition, he taught Mathematics to middle school students for two years. He also received a multiple subject teaching credential with a supplementary authorization in Business Studies from the State of California.

Approximately 2-weeks before the start of the course, participants will be emailed a course introduction, instructions for how to participate and a pre-course survey and readings, if applicable. If you do not receive this email please let us know.

Course announcements will be sent from events@pdacademia.com, please add this email sender to your safe sender list.