Positive Uses of Social Media by School Nurses That Promote 21st Century Student Health
This blog post provides information about the breakout session on Saturday, July 2, 2016 at NASN2016.
School Nursing is unique in that, in most cases, we are the only medical professional in the building. In some rural areas, the nearest school nurse could be an hour-plus drive. School nurses do not always have a group of peers to work closely with every day like teachers do, so we have to think outside of the box and come up with creative ways to connect and communicate with other fellow school nurses. That is where social media can be a great asset to school nurses.
Connect. Twitter is one of the easiest and most widely used social media platforms. All you need to get signed up is an email address! Scrolling through your Twitter feed for the first time can be an overwhelming feeling, but you will find that it is a great way to connect with school nurses, parents, and even students. Another creative way to connect with other nurses is Facebook. Facebook has been around for many years, and is mostly used for sharing vacation photos or staying connected to family. But did you know Facebook also offers “closed” Facebook groups? This is a useful way to privately communicate with groups of nurses, or other health care professionals, without the whole world watching. Recently, through an email chain, I connected with a group of other nurses who are planning to take the School Nurse Certification Exam over the summer. Someone suggested starting a study group, but since we were all in different cities, we decided to do a closed Facebook group. This is a space where we can share our study outlines, other resources or files, and connect with each other on our own time—without clogging our email inboxes.
Communicate. Through social media, we can easily and effectively communicate to other school nurses, not only in our school communities, but throughout the state and beyond. Social media can also be a tool to communicate with parents and students. I’ve had a personal Twitter account for awhile now, but I recently started a new account for our school nurse group to connect to parents and others in our community. We chose the name @ACPS nurses so it would be easily found by other parents or students in our schools. We use this account to share information about health requirements for our district, such as Tdap for rising 6th graders or flu shot reminders. We also use Twitter as a way to promote the nursing profession and make our work known to the school district and community.
Caution. Social Media can be a positive tool in your profession. But it is a public forum, so use caution. Create a professional profile and identify yourself as a school nurse, so your followers know you are an expert. Be a role model. Remember, this is a public forum, so whether we intend it or not, our students can find us and see what our social media profiles are all about. Maintain professionalism at all times. When you are out there in cyberspace, you represent not only your school district, but you also represent the profession of school nursing.
You can learn more ways to incorporate social media as a school nurse by attending my session on Saturday, July 2nd at NASN2016! Log in to Twitter, follow NASN (@schoolnurses), and sign up for the conference today!