Students from the Erie II BOCES Practical Nursing Program partnered with Dunkirk School Nurse Heidi Powell for a Teddy Bear Clinic where children brought stuffed animals for a check-up with nurses in training.

Powell is a Dunkirk School Nurse with a decade of experience serving on a pediatric unit. She helped design the clinic to help students master the medical environment, which can often be foreign or stressful for children to navigate. The clinic gave children the opportunity to handle equipment themselves to be the ones in control of the environment, rather than being the patient themselves.

Various stations were set up throughout the gym stressing different areas of health, including basic hygiene, mental health and being in touch with one’s feelings, measuring vital signs, height and weight, eating healthy foods, and administering vaccines. Needle-free syringes were used to administer mock vaccines with food coloring.

Approximately 40 children attended the event, while 15 students from the nursing program taught them the skills they are learning. Powell was pleased with the turnout for an event in its first year.

“It went really well. I was very, very happy with it,” Powell said. She noted many of the parents of the children who attended the event commented positively about the engaging activities and the professionalism of the nursing students.

Powell is open to holding the event again in the future. The nursing program was also pleased with the experience and expressed a desire to collaborate again in the future.

The BOCES nursing program is currently enrolling applicants. Financial assistance is available to those who qualify. Call (716) 805-3138 for more information.