Valley Parish Nurse Program marks 25 years this weekend

The Valley Parish Nurse Program marks 25 years of helping build healthier communities this Sunday.

Started as a vision of The Rev. Fred Erson, former Director of Pastoral Care at Griffin Hospital, to provide “whole person healthcare,” the Valley Parish Nurse Program began in the fall of 1989 under the direction of Jan Sharkey, RN. The program grew from five parishes and six nurses to more than 40 churches and hundreds of active nurses and health cabinet members at parishes in Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Oxford, Naugatuck, New Haven, Waterbury, Meriden, Middlebury, Southbury, and Hamden.

The Valley Parish Nurse Program will celebrate its 25th anniversary on St Luke’s Day, October 19 at Griffin Hospital, 130 Division St., Derby.

The event is open to the public and will be from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Participants will enjoy refreshments and learn about all the churches that participate in the program. The event will also feature a healing service at 1 p.m.

Parish nurses serve as a healthcare resource and referral person to their churches and community. The goal of the parish nurse is to keep people healthy through education and preventative medicine practices, including offering free health screenings such as blood pressure, and to connect people to needed resources when appropriate.

“The Valley Parish Nurse Program provides us with a really unique dimension to healthcare,” said Griffin Hospital President and CEO Patrick Charmel. “Parish nurses are volunteers that live and work with people in their community and they develop a level of trust that allows them to connect, intervene, educate and understand the specific healthcare needs of their neighborhood.”

In 1999, The Valley Parish Nurse Program expanded its services with the purchase of a Mobile Health Resource Van by Griffin Hospital. The van allows members of Griffin Hospital’s Community Outreach Department and the Valley Parish Nurse Program to conduct health screenings and provide health education practically anywhere. In 2006, Griffin purchased a larger, better-equipped van that has increased the frequency and types of health screenings.

The program continued to grow in 2004 as Griffin Hospital became a certified American Heart Association CPR Training Site, and began offering free and reduced-price CPR training to the community. Also in that year, Griffin Hospital became a Safe Kids Worldwide Chapter, enabling the Valley Parish Nurses to offer programs that teach children and adults how to prevent injuries in the car, on bicycles, and walking to school.

“A parish nurse is a health educator, a health counselor, an organizer and a friend,” said Daun Barrett, RN, Director of Community Outreach and Parish Nursing at Griffin Hospital. “We go wherever the need is - whether it’s education programs to the children in schools, daycare facilities, after school programs, scouts, and clubs, or it’s new parents and families looking for help with home safety, child passenger safety, special needs, CPR and first aid. We work with companies on general well-being and disease prevention, and we bring good health to the community with programs at senior centers and shopping malls.

“We are not happy to just meet the status quo. We are here to help you, our community be the healthiest we can be.”

For more information, visit The Valley Parish Nurse Program page at griffinhealth.org or call Daun Barrett at 203.732.7584.