ABSTRACT
In this chapter three models for viewing parish nurse programs are presented. The models slowly came to light for me over a period of several years. I struggled constantly with living in the now of providing education and resource support for a large, volunteer parish nurse network, and pulling back from daily tasks to make some meaning of where it all fit into a bigger picture. In 1999, I was asked by the editor of Insights to review Dr. Ralph Underwood’s well-expressed paper on healing and wholeness, and to write a response from a nurse’s view.1 The opportunity allowed my internal reflections to metamorphose into my initial written thoughts on three ways to view parish nursing: mission/ministry approaches, marketplace approaches, and access approaches.2 In subsequent publications I continued to expand the way of thinking about parish nursing.3,4,5 Without understanding the underlying assumptions behind parish nurse programs, it is impossible to evaluate what is taking place. As pondered in Chapter 2 of this book, whose objective is the program trying to meet? It is also difficult to evaluate program effectiveness when the targets of program interventions are not clearly planned or articulated. Intervention strategies for parish nurse programs are also introduced.
