Synthesis of the Capstone Experience

Ultimately, we came to the National Youth Sports Program as nurse educators with one question: will our education and training in healthy relationship development change the way students react to negative situations?  Like any experience, we witnessed many ups and downs, which we had to overcome together as members of a group.  One of the most difficult challenges that we faced while at camp was the sociocultural barriers between the participants and us.  As nurse educators, we strove to meet our students at their education level, and broaden that knowledge base.  This was done so that NYSP participants could trust us, and come to us for any concern they were facing. One of our most difficult responsibilities was our education piece and working with the children in the classroom setting.     

Despite the challenges to improvement, our hope is that the participants have adopted relief strategies and techniques we taught to them for dealing with stress and anger management into their everyday lives.  We taught them to think of having a healthy relationship in terms of treating others the way you would like to be treated.  Such a simple phrase goes a long way, and really emphasizes the importance of maintaining this throughout their lives.  We would like the children to adopt healthy living strategies that evolve into healthy relationships with those they are around most often.  We taught them that while violence is prevalent in their community, by controlling their own actions, they can prevent themselves from heading down the wrong path toward destructive habits and decision making.