Kapiolani Community College

Associate in Science Degree Nursing Program

NURS 320 Health & Illness II
Reflection on Service Learning Experience
The service learning gave me an opportunity to work with a pediatric
population and interact with different groups of children. It allowed me to
observe the concepts of childhood development and provide appropriate
psychosocial care. My experiences of Interacting with the children in a
community setting were not only fun, but rewarding as well. I volunteered
for three service learning events. I participated in surf for hugs, Kapiolani
Community Colleges health fair and Wrapping presents at the Hugs house.
Prior to the pediatric rotation, I had almost no experience interacting with
children, therefore these events served as a valuable teaching tool.
The first event I participated in was Surf for hugs. This was going to be
my first time interacting with children so I was a little apprehensive. I was
ecstatic to be assigned to water patrol because I was able to interact with
the children in a comfortable environment. The waves were getting bigger
and bigger and I was able to use my knowledge of the ocean and my
knowledge of physical childhood development to provide the children a safe
environment to surf. Everything was going so smoothly until one instructor
asked me to take a 3 or 4 year old girl back to the shore. I picked her up
from the surfboard and turned to shore where all of the families and
volunteers were waiting. As I was making my way back all I could hear was
the words from the hugs orientation where they emphasized not to ever
carry a child. I kept asking myself should I drop her? should I carry her? In
the midst of completely over thinking the situation I decided to put her in the
water and guide her while she floated and when a wave would come I would
assist her over it. After that, the technical part of me took over and I was
determined to get clarifications from the director. I kept asking my
classmate can we do this? can we do that? I finally got over it and came to
the conclusion that some rules would be altered depending on the situation
or event. After the surfing portion of the event was completed we took part
in award ceremony and passed out trophies.
The trophies or reward was appropriate for the developmental stage of
most of the children. However, I observed a child throw her trophy into the
sand immediately after it was handed to her. She appeared to be very angry.
The child appeared to have a developmental disability. Her eyes were not
symmetrical, her ears were low set she had a flat skull and the eyes were
spaced far apart. She had a difficulty communicating evidenced by her
inability to verbalize her needs and why she was upset.
The second service learning event I did was Kapiolani community
colleges health fair. I was assigned as an ambassador and I had no clue what
that entailed so I had no expectations. My duty was to guide a class of high

school students to the different health booths. The coordinator stressed the
importance of leaving and arriving at different booths on time to stay on
schedule. The class I was assigned to were a group of 28 seniors from Aiea
high school. While establishing rapport with the students, I discovered that
they were part of a health career pathway offered by their school. I was
pleased to get a group of students that were seriously considering a career in
the health field and were actually considering to attend KCC.
As we walked from one booth to another, I observed that the students
would break off into cliques. They showed a lot of enthusiasm for the
different programs. I was able to give them a lot of information on the CNA,
LPN and RN programs as well as take them to the sim lab (which they loved
the most).