PRACTICAL 12 ORGANISING
OBSERVATION VISIT
TO COMMUNITY
HEALTH AGENCIES
Structure
12.0 Objectives
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Community Health Agencies
12.2.1 Purposes
12.2.2 Steps of Organizing an Educational Visit
12.3 Activity
12.4 Let Us Sum Up
- -
12.0 OBJECTIVES
After going through practical, you should be able to:
prepare a list of community health agencies, which you should visit as a part of
community health experience;
explain what steps you will take to organize the education visit;
organize a visit for yourself or other members like staff or students of the
agency where you are working; and
write a report on the agency visited by you.
12.1 INTRODUCTION
While working in the community for providing effective care you should know about
the various resources and community health agencies. You should be aware aboui
their functioning because they are concerned with welfare of the people and are
useful for implementation of community health programme. In this practical you will
develop the skill in organizing an educational visit to community health agency.
Educational visits have been an important part of teaching and learning process.
These visits provide an opportunity to have first hand information about the agency
or the institution in their natural environment. Educational visit will help you to get
knowledge of community agencies, their functions, and to familiarize you with
various types and numbers of health resources available in a selected community
where educational visits can be organized. This will also help you to critically
evaluate community resources in order to make appropriate referrals or use these
for planning and implementing community health programmes. In this Practical we
shall focus on organising an observation visit to community health agency.
12.2 COMMUNITY HEALTH AGENCIES
Community health agencies are those where field visit can be arranged for
additional learning.
You should prepare list of the community health agencies, which are useful
resources for community health programme, as per the place where programme is Organising Observation
conducted. For example, Community health agencies, which can be visited, are: Visit to Community
Health Agencies
1) Primary Health Centers (PHC)
2) Rural Field Teaching Centers
3) District Hospital
4) Rural block development office
5) Integrated Child Development Centers-Anganwadi's
6) Any special ongoing programme with community by voluntary groups-
Religious, VHA, 1ndi;idual leadership groups, etc.
7) Any special ongoing programme in the community by any international group--
WHO, UNDP, UNICEF, FAO, ODA's, Red Cross, etc.
8) Central Health Education Bureau (CHEB)
9) National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD)
10) Social welfare organization
12.2.1 Purposes
The purposes of visit to a community health agency are given below:
i) To get acquainted with its
Historical background
Location and physicd setup
Broad policies
The source of financial support
ii) To be able to:
Describe in detail its organizational structure
List the broad areas of activities of the organization
Identify the role of the organization in
- dealing with international health problems
- promoting and implementing primary health care
- promoting health for all by 2000 A.D.
- dealing with control of communicable disease
- population dynamics and its impact on community health
- education and training of health personnel
List the type of personnel
- Administrative
- Teaching
- Field workers
I
Nursing Practices in 5 i iii) To be able to:
Community Health-I1
Learn the formalities for membership for member countries.
Discuss the future plan of the institution regarding health care services.
12.2.2 ' Steps of Organizing an ~dueatiohalVisit
You should make efforts to organize a visit to a community health agency for
yourself or for the students who are working with you in the community health field.
This will help you to identify and get familiar with the community resources or allied
agencies for community health nursing practice. Arranging an educational trip
reauires a well thought out plan so that it is successful and objectives are achieved.
See Annexure 1, 2 & 3).
Following are the steps of organizing and conducting a field visit to community health
agencies:
Knowledge about agency know about the agency
Build rapport with the personnel in the institution to be visited
Formulate objlectivesof the visit
Prepare guidelines
Arrange transport and time
Prepare trainee Nurses at various levels
Go for the visit
Follow-up and evaluation
Send thanks letter to the agency
We shall discuss each of these steps as given below:
Knowledge About Agency
Find out about the agency to be visited and analyze the educational value of the visit.
As a teacher or the organizer you should pay an exploratory visit to determine
whether or not educational visit will contribute towards achievement of desired
objectives, if it is feasible to arrange a visit.
Rapport with the Personnel in the Institution to be Visited
A friendly welcome by the personnel of the agency to be visited is conducive to
C. Agency personnel should be well informed about the purposes, procedures
LI lization of the field visit. This can be done by a pre-visit discussion with the
#,zncy personnel. This discussion will contribute towards establishing rapport with the
personnel of the institution and planning a programme for the visit.
Objectives of the Visit.
State the objectives completely and carefully and then select the learning activities that
will best contribute to the attainment of the objectives. Consideration should also be
given to the cost and time of the field visit. A formal'letter to authorities of the agency
with copy of the objectives need to be sent ahead of time so that the concerned
members can plan for the programmt of the visit and send the acceptance of the visit '
planned with a programme copy.
Prepare Guidelines ..-.--
Prepare guidelines for the group to help them to be able to achieve the objectives of
the visit. Guideline can have quest;lons, which can help them to seek more information
about the agency and use this as a csm-esource.
Arrangement of Transportation and Time -ganising Observation
Make necessary arrangement for the time and the place of meeting and duration of Visit to Community
Health Agencies
the visit with the administrative personnel of the place to be visited. Accordingly the
students or the group visiting the agency can be informed.
Preparation of Trainee Nurses at various Levels
Visit to community health agencies is a part of community health nursing course and
is based on related learning activities of the course content. For example, visit to
Central Health Education Bureau (CHEB) is a part of learning about health
education. Objectives will be based on learning about an agency which is concerned
with health education. Student can be given opportunity to list the obje'btives of the
visit planned. Directions should be given about the procedure to be followed in
observations through the visit and what special points may be noted.
Going for the Visit
Visiting team should visit the agency as per the time specified. Supervisor or the
team leader can contact the authorities for the planned programme of the visit. The
visit should proceed in an orderly manner with all students in an alert and observing
frame of mind. The team leader or teacher can assist the students by calling
attention to important points.
Follow-up and Evaluation
If it is a group visit to an agency, a discussion session should be arranged to discuss
about the agency and how it can be used as a community resource. Report of the
visjt should be submitted. This is useful in evaluatirlg the field visit and can be used
fof future reference. If proper evaluation records are maintained, this will help in
future planning of the visit and learning experience. Those experiences, which have
Men proved to be unsuitable can be deleted in future visit plan.
Sending Thanks Letter to the Agency
After the visit a thanks letter should be sent to the agency expressing thanks for all
that they had done in arranging the visit to the agency and meeting the objectives of
the group.
Activity
Select a community health agency and arrange for an observation visit to the agency
for yourself and your group in the institution where you are working.
Guidelines for Activity
Identification Data of Community/IndividualsJFamily
Name of the Purposes StepsProcedure Remarks
place of visit of visit
Signature
12.3 LET US SUM UP
€&rununity health nurse should be able to help community to make best use of
community resource available and she should also be able to use these resources
and avail facilities available in other agencies for planping and implementing
community health programmes. To know more about the community health agencies
she should organize visit for herself and team members so that they can use the
services &d resources within community heath nursing action. In this Practical you
have learnt how to plan and organise an observation-visit.
LETTER FOR EDUCATIONAL VISIT
The Regional Director
World Health Organization
Indra Prastha Estate
Ring Road
New Delhi
Subject: Request of a visit to WHO for 3rd year B.Sc. Nursing Students
sir,
I am to request you to kindly arrange for an educational visit for 3rd year B.Sc.
Nursing Students (43 number) along with 3 student teachers and one supervising
teacher on 15th January 2001 at 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.
These students are having community health experience both in rural and urban health
settings and learning about roles and functions of National and International health
organization with reference to alternative approaches to health care delivery system,
training of health personnel and research, etc. The copy of the educational objectives
is enclosed. Kindly c o n f m the date and time.
Awaiting your earliest reply.
Yours faithfully
Annexure
OBJECTIVES FOR EDUCATIONAL VI$IT
To get acquainted with
i) Historical ~ackgkund.
ii) Location and physical setup.
iii) Broad policies and general objectives.
iv) The sources of financial support.
To ac able to:
i) Describe in detail its organization structure.
ii) List the broad areas of activities.
iii) Identify role of the Organization.
- Dealing with international health problems.
- Promoting and implementing primary health care.
- Promoting health for all
- Dealing with control of communicabte diseases.
- Population dynamics.
- Education and training of health personnel.
be able to:
Learn the formalities for membership and member countries.
Discuss the future plan of the institution regarding health care services.
Annexure 3
GUIDELINES FOR WRITING REPORT FOR EDUCATIONAL VISIT
SUBJECT : Community Health Nursing
UNIT : International Health
TOPIC : Field visit to World Health Organization
Guideline for the field visit to WHO foy 3rd year B.Sc. Nursing Students.
Date of Visit : 15.1.2001
Prepared By :
Objectives
1) Students will get acquainted with its:
- location and physical set up
- historical background
- policies and objectives
2) Students will be able to:
- Describe its organizational set up
- Identify its function and role in
0 Dealing with international health problems
0 Promoting "Health for All" by 2000 A.D.
0 Education and training of health personnel.
- Identify WHO'S contribution towards nursing profession
- State the future plan of WHO regarding peoples' health at large.
Instructions
Fill up the blanks with appropriate answers.
1) Identify the location of WHO.
a) The Headquarter of the South East Asian Regional Office is in
......................................................................................................................
b) How far is it?
......................................................................................................................
2) Identity the physical set up of WHO.
a) List the various departments of SEARO.
......................................................................................................................
......................................................................................................................
Describe the historical development of WHO. Organising Observation
Visit to Community
a) When was it established? ............................................................................. Health Agencies
b) In 1948, the WHO had ..................................................................................
c) Where is the International Headquarter? ....................................................
d) World Health Day is celebrated every year on ............................................
The objective of WHO is
List the preamble of WHO. I
...............................................................................................................................
State the organization set up of SEAR0 of WHO.
'Enumerate the financial resources of WHO.
...............................................................................................................................
List the functions of WHO.
...............................................................................................................................
What is the role of WHO for Nursing?
