What is the role of the school nurse in campus safety?

What is the role of the school nurse in campus safety?

For the schools that are fortunate enough to be staffed with nurses - and unfortunately, many of our schools are not properly staffed with nursing personnel - they're another invaluable resource. They can help, of course, with the physical needs of children on a day-to-day basis. But they're also a very crucial participant when they're asked to the table to make sure that school emergency plans are up to date, to help with biological incident planning, for example, to make sure that we have plans in place to always take our emergency meds out during any type of fire drill or any type of practice for a real event. Because under stress, if we haven't practiced on a day-to-day basis, we'll forget something as critical as taking the meds out of the building with us with the children. So they're an instrumental part to make sure a school is optimizing their public heath preventive measures, as well as mental heath. They very often spot bullying if they're alert to it and can help a child who's being bullied. So they're a really good point person for the school to detect and address preventive concerns, but also to help with our preparedness efforts.