Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

NUR 4144: Professional Role Development Servant Leadership

Summative Service-Learning Reflection
Grading Rubric
Student Name: Jamie Borel
Instructions: Reflect upon your personal experience with service-learning activities across your
nursing program, using the following key components. This is a reflection of how service-
learning has shaped your values.
Papers should be between 1000-1500 words.
Points Points
Possible Earned
1. Noticing & Interpreting: 30
➢ What expectations did you have of service-learning from the
beginning of your nursing program? Were these expectations
met or not met (with explanation)?
➢ What strengths and problems did you, personally, see in the
community? What assets/solutions to problems did you see?
➢ How did your values and experiences as part of a certain
cultural, racial, ethnic, religious group, socioeconomic status
group, or exposure to media or other sources of information
concerning “needy” communities shape what you saw and
heard throughout your nursing program?
2. Responding: 20
➢ What have you learned about the needs of the surrounding
community?
➢ Have you found the service-learning activities to be truly
relevant to the community and your learning experiences?
3. Reflecting on service-learning: 30
➢ Has your service-learning experiences influenced your
perception of your call to serve?
➢ Has your concept of service-learning changed since you began
your career as a nursing student?
➢ Briefly describe how your past experiences of service-
learning in your nursing courses (NUR 1100, NUR 3113, and
NUR 3114, NUR 4144) helped prepare you for service-
learning.
4. Reflecting on civic engagement: 20
➢ What is civic engagement? (cite any ideas that are not your
own)
➢ How do you plan to stay engaged with the local community
when you graduate?
Total Personal Summative Reflection Points: 100

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Noticing & Interpreting
Going into my service-learning opportunities at the beginning of nursing school, I honestly
didn’t know what to think. I guess I assumed I would go to these volunteer experiences, put in my
hours, write my reflections and be done with it. I didn’t expect to still be thinking back on these
experiences as one of the most profound things I’ve done as a student here at Bon Secours Memorial
College of Nursing. To this day, I still remember the humbling experience of packing meals in the
community kitchen at FeedMore so that Meals on Wheels could deliver the only home-cooked meals
these people may receive for the day. I also will forever be changed by my experience at CARITAS
and learning about the work they do each day for the homeless and substance abuse populations in
the greater Richmond area. These experiences far surpass the expectations I had for them.
The strengths I’ve seen in our community through FeedMore, CARITAS, and Sitter and
Barfoot are that there are significant needs for the vulnerable populations in our community, but we
have so many people who make it their lives work to create and distribute resources for these people
to help better their lives. I’ve learned that although the struggles of the hungry, homeless, abused,
and disabled are beyond anything I have experienced, these people are resilient, and it is that
resilience that keeps these organizations motivated to continue serving the community. Whether it’s
through food banks, meals on wheels, community kitchens, skilled-living facilities, furniture banks,
substance abuse recovery programs, and shelter; these organizations provide so many assets and
solutions for people, who otherwise would be without and it’s incredible that I was able to play a
small role in helping these organizations with their missions.
I think the biggest change I see in myself having served with these organizations is awareness
to problems that I had no idea, were so prevalent in our community. As a white female, living in a
suburban neighborhood in Hanover county, it’s not common to see the problems these organizations
are battling. However, now I know that the homeless, hungry, disabled, and addicted populations are
everywhere. I think these experiences have made me aware and more compassionate towards
everyone I encounter because I’ve learned that you never truly know what someone is going through.

Responding
I have learned that the greater Richmond area has more vulnerable populations than I would
have ever realized after volunteering with FeedMore, Sitter & Barfoot, and CARITAS. There are
children who are food insecure everywhere, including the elementary school my daughter goes to.
I’ve learned that there is a whole facility dedicated to disabled veterans at the VA hospital. I’ve
learned that the number of people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and who die from these
addictions exceeds the number of cancer-related deaths. These are real problems that our community
faces, and they aren’t simple problems to solve.
I believe all of my service-learning experiences have been very relevant to the community.
The sheer number of people who struggle with hunger, homelessness, and substance abuse in the
greater Richmond area is staggering. Each of these organizations have found ways to tackle these
issues from several different angles and that type of multisystem approach is what is needed, because
you can’t solve hunger by just having a foodbank. A lot of those people have no way to get to the
food bank. They answer that by providing meals on wheels, so the food can be delivered. That is
just one example, but it demonstrates how these organizations are going about solving problems that
are real for so many in our community. It definitely has shaped my learning experience because I
now know that I need to look deeper into my patient’s situations when I encounter them in the
hospital. Maybe the mother in labor has a baby who isn’t doing well, under monitoring, because she
has a history of substance abuse or maybe she is homeless an hasn’t had prenatal care, or maybe
she’s not getting adequate nutrition. These are all things that I need to consider with my patients and
these experiences have taught me that, first-hand.

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Reflecting on Service-Learning
I would definitely say that my experiences of service-learning have influences my perception
of my calling to serve. It has strengthened that call to serve. I realize, more than ever, that as an RN
I am an advocate for my patients and those patients are coming from all different walks of life, with
all different stories and experiences. I will have to care for them no matter what the situation, and
these experiences have given me a greater appreciation for that duty. I am proud that I will be
serving this community as an RN because although the community has many struggles, those people
have a lot of resilience and a large number of people in their corner supporting them and making sure
everyone has the opportunity to live the best life possible.
I do believe my concept of service-learning has changed since I began my career as a nursing
student. To be honest, I hadn’t done much service-learning prior to nursing school so just the
knowledge that there are so many opportunities to serve our community out there is a huge change. I
also believe that my empathy for the struggles that people face in our community is another huge
change I’ve noticed within myself, having experienced service-learning through nursing school. I
now appreciate that anyone, at any time, can fall into hard-times and they don’t need judgment; they
need a helping hand, and I will continue to be a part of that process.
These nursing courses I’ve completed throughout the BSMCON program (NUR1100,
NUR3113, NUR3114, and NUR4144) did am amazing job at preparing me for my service-learning
opportunities. We have always been taught to reflect on ourselves, with every course taken, but these
courses ask us to reflect on what we see around us in the community. These courses opened up my
mind to think about populations that are vulnerable and how we as nurses will handle these patients
in our hospitals. These courses helped to shape our own values and beliefs so that when we come
upon people who are from different backgrounds and have different values and beliefs that we have,
that we can lean on what we know about ourselves to help be advocates for them.

Reflecting on Civic Engagement

Although civic engagement has a political meaning, as far as paying taxes and voting, there is
a nonpolitical side to civic engagement that has been demonstrated through our service-learning
opportunities. Civic engagement is doing things to help out, or better, your community. It’s about
reaching out to someone less fortunate and helping, whether it be through donations of goods, or
donation of time. It’s about being engaged in the communities with which we live, to lift people up
and serve in a way that betters the community as a whole.
I plan to stay engaged in the community after graduation by making donations to CARITAS
when I have household items to give away. I plan to stay engaged with FeedMore by taking my kids
to the Food Bank to donate canned goods around the holidays. I’d also love to set up a regular
schedule to go volunteer a few times a year with a new organization each year. I feel that once I
finish school I will have more time to donate those hours and I fully intend to do that.

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