UAA College of Health faculty and students present at Housing and Homelessness Conference in October

Justice Center faculty Troy Payne, Ph.D., and Sharon Chamard, Ph.D., presented at the "University and Community Partnerships" session at the Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ACH2) Annual Conference in Anchorage on Oct. 11.

Payne and Donna Aguiniga, Ph.D., faculty in UAA School of Social Work, discussed their research project, "Space, Place & Home: Mapping the Social Environment of Anchorage Homeless Populations." Their research, in partnership with Covenant House, focused on homeless youth. Through interviews and the use of maps, the researchers asked youth to trace the locations they traveled to throughout the day and evening, and where they slept at night.

Sharon Chamard presented on "Homeless Encampments" and discussed her research that examines why homeless encampments exist where they do and the factors that make one location preferred over another. She often works with the Anchorage Police Department Community Action Policing (CAP) Team to address public safety concerns, including homelessness and the use of public space.

Travis Hedwig, Ph.D., faculty in UAA Department of Health Sciences, explained the project, "Increasing Retention, Graduation, and Educational Success Among UAA Students Experiencing Homelessness." Kathy Trawver, Ph.D., faculty in School of Social Work, and Isabel Hakala, a Health Sciences student, are also working on this project. They used publicly available information on Free Student Application for Federal Aid (FAFSA) forms from UAA students to gauge the number of UAA students experiencing homelessness-the form specifically asks about experience of homelessness. The goal is to ascertain the needs of homeless UAA students and assist them in their college career.

UAA College of Health nursing students also presented about their service-learning project from the Nursing Therapeutic II class-the Senior Nursing Capstone Project-and their partnership with Karluk Manor, a Housing First model residence in Anchorage. This cohort of nursing students began a community nursing project to provide home visits to residents of Karluk Manor. Their goal was to determine how this experience of a home visit project influenced student nurses' views about community nursing and its value. Assistant Professor Rachel Muir, FNP-BC, was the faculty for this class.

The session was moderated by Travis Hedwig, Ph.D., with the UAA Department of Health Sciences.

This story originally appeared on the UAA Justice Center blog.

November Archive