The involvement of older community members in undergraduate learning

Aged care is a core subject in most undergraduate nursing courses. At Charles Sturt University, the focus of the nursing curriculum is primary health care but there was disparity with the aged care subject where students were predominantly engaged with frail, dependent older people living in residential aged care. The student experience needed to be broadened so that they had the opportunity to interact with and engage in health promotion experiences with well, older people. The current cohort of older Australians is the most heterogeneous population group and the significance for nursing is that this group of individuals will be encountered in all clinical environments, not solely in residential aged care. The best informants about ageing are those who have lived the experience. The challenge was to provide the students with opportunities to engage with older people in a variety of settings, developing an appreciation of the complexities and the multi factorial aspects involved in assessing the needs of older people and working collaboratively with them to facilitate healthy ageing. Subsequently, older people have become integral to the undergraduate aged care subject at Charles Sturt University. Their involvement takes a number of forms including the production of a case study with older community members as the actors. The case study was filmed by students in the School of Communication and Creative Industries and was used as an assessment task. The learning goes beyond nursing and beyond the walls of the university, embracing the older community members and valuing their experiences. In this paper, the various forms of collaboration between the older community members and the students will be elaborated upon and the outcomes for both groups discussed.