{"id":207367,"date":"2023-11-28T09:52:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T14:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=207367"},"modified":"2023-11-28T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T14:52:41","slug":"community-wellness-school-of-pharmacy-students-promote-health-and-wellness-in-hartford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/11\/community-wellness-school-of-pharmacy-students-promote-health-and-wellness-in-hartford\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Wellness: School of Pharmacy Students Promote Health and Wellness in Hartford"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Keney Park Sustainability Project<\/a>\u2019s (KPSP) goal is to create the next generation of healthy, productive, and environmentally conscious citizens.\u00a0 The programs are based in the federally designated North Hartford Promise Zone, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, and predominantly Black and Hispanic.\u00a0 Their mission is to provide hands-on training, on-site demonstrations, educational outreach, and community collaborations that help families become more self-sustainable and environmentally conscious while preserving Keney Park.<\/p>\n

Over the summer and through early fall, the KPSP\u2019s Urban Ecology Wellness Center<\/a> (UEWC) launched \u201cHealth and Wellness in the Park\u201d to engage Hartford residents and promote utilizing Keney Park for wellness through a variety of \u201cWellness Popups\u201d at local events. The main objective of the popups was to reach community members who do not have access to some health-related services. These community events were made possible through collaboration with CT AHEC, the City of Hartford’s Health and Human Services, Community Health Network, Inc., Hartford Health Initiative, and various UConn departments including Physical Therapy, Medicine, Dentistry, and the School of Pharmacy.<\/p>\n

Chinenye Anyanwu, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pharmacy Practice, connected with Herb Virgo, KPSP Executive Director, to explore ways the School of Pharmacy could collaborate and support KPSP\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to help our students understand that healthcare is more than just services provided in a clinic \u2013 that at times we have to think outside of the box to meet people where they are,\u201d says Anyanwu. \u00a0\u201cCollaborating with KPSP on their summer popup wellness series made perfect sense. It gave our students an opportunity to further develop the skills required to communicate with people, beyond the four walls of a clinic or pharmacy setting, about how to safely and properly use medications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyanwu\u2019s student group participated in all eight of the events in this summer\u2019s popup wellness series and presented on a variety of medication related topics.\u00a0 The topics included: medication safety, immunizations, device use, over-the-counter medications, the opioid epidemic, and the safe disposal of medications.\u00a0 Additional services were offered as well such as blood pressure and blood sugar screenings, produce distribution, and nutrition education.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe KPSP Wellness Popups were a great experience,\u201d said student volunteer and Pharm.D. candidate, Dakota Sicignano. \u00a0\u201cIt was extremely interesting to talk to the community members specifically about how the opioid epidemic has affected their lives as well as have the opportunity to educate those who might not know as much about opioids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students also enjoyed the opportunity to work alongside students from other disciplines towards a common goal. \u201cI enjoyed working with students of other professions — as a pharmacy student, it’s not often that we get to collaborate with medical, dental, nursing, and physical assistant students,\u201d said Aleena Thomas, Pharm.D. candidate.\u00a0 \u201cIt can be difficult for people to see their doctor on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, so to have healthcare professionals come to people in their neighborhoods, in a place where they are comfortable, increases access to care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Virgo and Anyanwu hope that the KPSP and the School of Pharmacy\u2019s partnership grows beyond the Wellness Popups to reach and support more of Hartford\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ultimate goal is to create a facility that can offer services year-round,\u201d says Herbert Virgo, KPSP Executive Director. \u201cA physical building would offer another layer of privacy for those using our services. It would also allow us to offer a broader range of services and it would enable us to expand our reach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinenye Anyanwu and a team of students partnered with the Keney Park Sustainability Project\u2019s Urban Ecology Wellness Center to offer education on a variety of wellness topics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":207371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2449],"class_list":["post-207367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pharm"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 16:16:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207372,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207367\/revisions\/207372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/207371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207367"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=207367"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=207367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}