March 6, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you to those school nurse leaders/contacts who have submitted their district’s or private school’s application request for field trip and/or epinephrine registration that expires on 6/30/2017.  Please note:  The application packets will be mailed out at the beginning of April 2017 for those that have requested these applications.  Please have the completed application returned to the School Health Unit by May 12, 2017 in order for the certification to become effective after June 30, 2017.  Please also check the date of your most recent attendance at Boston University – SHIELD’s “Medication Administration and Delegation Workshop”.  (This is a requirement for registration, and the attendance date should be within the last five years.).  If applications are not received in time to process appropriately, there is no guarantee that the new registration will be in place for the September 2017 school year.

A Lyme Disease – Tick Task Force on Cape Cod is working to organize a one-day statewide symposium with representatives from groups and agencies that could play a role in one of the five topic areas in the area of Lyme Disease prevention and treatment: surveillance and reporting; education and awareness; insurance and liability; prevention; and funding. The goal of this symposium is to share the recommendations of a statewide report on this concern with everyone, to have breakout sessions on each of the 5 topic areas and develop a plan to move the recommendations forward. The group would like to have representation from school nurses   If you are interested in working as a school nurse representative to this group, please let me know!  (You do not need to live on the Cape to participate…this is a statewide forum.)

Attached is the March 180 Newsletter compiled by Danielle King, BSN, RN, School Nurse at the Bennett Hemenway Elementary School in Natick.  For information on how to join the Online Consortium of School Nurses focused on Type One Diabetes, please contact Danielle at dking@natickps.org.

Please continue to contact me (mary.gapinski@state.ma.us) with questions or concerns related to providing the mandated screening, SBIRT in Schools.  Please see the BU SHIELD program website at www.shield-bu.org for all scheduled SBIRT Introductory Programs as well as the Essentials of Implementation Workshops.  These are provided through state appropriations at NO COST to all school districts.  Please remember, this must is mandated to be done in ALL public middle and high schools on an annual basis beginning in the Fall 2017.

Please also see the BU SHIELD website for registration for our Spring 2017 Foundations of School Nursing Practice in MA; this is the required introduction for school nursing licensure under DESE. Registration for the training workshops for mandated screenings and the workshop on Medication Administration and Delegation in the School Setting (both required by DESE) are also available on the SHIELD website.

Thank you for all you do to serve our children so they can come to school, stay in school and do their very best to achieve- every day!

Mary Ann, Janet and Carol

“The ability to learn is older — as it is also more widespread — than is the ability to teach.”  –Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist

 From the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE):

From the MDPH Injury Surveillance Program

The MDPH Injury Surveillance Program recently released the latest comprehensive report of Massachusetts injury data, “Injuries Among Massachusetts Residents, 2013.”  Although this report does not include specific information on sports concussions, there is a major focus on traumatic brain injury among MA residents.  Please feel free to share this report with your injury prevention partners.  Here is the link to the report, along with some key findings related to traumatic brain injury:

http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/injury-surveillance/injury-surveillance-report-2013.pdf

(Please note that the report is 16 pages, so it may take a few seconds before the full report is displayed.)

• In 2013, 765 MA residents died of injuries that included a traumatic brain injury.  In addition, over 8,000 hospital stays and 67,000 emergency department (ED) visits were associated with TBI in 2013.   Over one in five injury deaths (23%) and one in ten injury-related hospital stays (11%) that year involved a TBI.  (pg. 3)
• MA acute care hospital charges associated with TBI totaled $498 million in 2013.  Over half (52%) of these charges were associated with fall injuries and one-fifth (20%) with motor vehicle-related injuries.  (pg. 6)
• We looked at TBI-related deaths and hospital stays among all MA residents between 2004 and 2013, as well as in four age groups, ages 0-14, 15-24, 25-64 and 65+.  (pg. 9)
  • The number of TBI-related deaths among MA residents increased from 467 to 765 over this 10-year time period.  This was largely due to an increase in unintentional fall deaths among MA adults ages 65+. TBI-related hospital stay rates among MA older adults also increased significantly over this time period (62% increase).
  • In contrast, TBI-related hospital stay rates decreased significantly among MA children ages 0-14 (24% decrease) and young people ages 15-24 (37% decrease) over this time period.

We hope this report provides useful information for you and your colleagues.  Please contact Beth Hume (Beth.hume@state.ma.us) or me (Jeanne.hathaway@state.ma.us) if you have any questions about this report.

 From the Children’s Behavioral Health Knowledge Center:

Save the Date:  May 5^th, 2017 at the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital in conjunction with Children’s Mental Health Week, this year’s Symposium will focus on parenting from several vantage points including:

• Parenting with a mental illness
• Parenting a child(ren) with behavioral health challenges
• Grandparenting
• Foster parenting
• Parenting in recovery from substance use

Attendees will hear directly from parents about how to best support and engage them as partners in promoting family well-being. Raising a child “takes a village” especially under adversity or special circumstances; supporting parents in doing this means taking a “whole family” approach when working with adults and/or children. Providers of adult, youth, and family behavioral health services, policy makers, advocates, and researchers from across the Commonwealth are encouraged to attend.

School Camp Nurse Positions:

This is being sent to Massachusetts School Nurses with the hope that you or someone in your network would like to join our team at West End House Camp, a small overnight summer camp for boys in Parsonsfield, Maine. We are seeking an excellent nurse to join us for the 2017 season at West End House Camp. There is no better place to be than at our beautiful lakeside setting in southern Maine as part of our leadership team. We are looking for someone who obviously has the medical skills to ensure the health and safety of our campers, but also someone who has the personality, energy, and positive attitude to support all that we are trying to collaboratively accomplish. West End House Camp is unique, special, historic, and better than ever in our second century! Our facility is modern and gorgeous. Please let me know as soon as possible if you have any interest in this opportunity or if you know someone through your professional and personal connections who might be a good candidate. Please share this within your circle of nurses, who may have availability during the summer. West End House Camp is perhaps the only camp around that has a 256 page history book written about it! We are celebrating our 109th anniversary! I would be very eager to tell you more, answer your questions, and make a great match.

Our website www.westendhousecamp.org tells our story quite well. I would be happy to rendezvous with a prospective candidate. Please contact me using the info below. Thanks in advance for your interest and help! Please share/forward this email. I look forward to hearing from you soon!  PLEASE NOTE:  MAINE NURSING LICENSE REQUIRED

Steve Lepler
Director
West End House Camp
1-781-784-5703
1-617-783-2267
steve@westendhousecamp.org
www.westendhousecamp.org

Summer address: 294 Road Between the Ponds, Parsonsfield, ME 04047

Winter Address: 105 Allston St., Allston, MA 02134