My name is Jane Albertson. I'm a school teacher at Doernbecher Children's
Hospital with the Hospital School Program and I've been here for two years.
This is my third year. The Doernbecher Hospital School
program is – like it sounds! It's a hospital school program and we're funded through
Multnomah Education Service District; we're part of their hospital program. So at our
Hospital School Program here at Doernbecher, we service three different
units: the ninth floor, which is the acute care unit, the 10th floor, which is the
intermediate care on 10 North and then on 10 South, the Hem/Onc unit. So how
our program works is that we're here to provide school services for students
while they're in the hospital. We work closely with students' home schools to
make sure that when they return to school after they've had a hospital stay
that that transition goes as smoothly as possible. So if that means we need to set
up like a 504 Plan or work on a health plan for the student when they
transition, then we help facilitate that process. The second part of our
job is to just work with students on the work that they're missing when they're
here in the hospital. So the students that we serve, like I mentioned they're
the ninth floor which is the acute care unit, 10 North (intermediate care) and 10
South Hem/Onc. So how we kind of decide which students we see –
unfortunately, because of our staffing we can't see every school-age student in
the entire Doernbecher Hospital, but we treat our students based on
their conditions. So chronic illness or on their length of stay so if they've
missed like five or more school days. And we service students that our ages 5,
so kindergarten, up to 21. Students that are on an individualized education plan
or an IEP plan are entitled to services through the age of 21. So typically
like I said, we triage those students. However if we get a referral from a
social worker or a medical staff we will see those students as well. Sometimes
that's a student that's receiving services over at the main OHSU Hospital.
We will see students up in the outpatient clinic, so that's kind of the
breadth of students that we reach. Partners are a big component.
Collaboration that's a major point of success for our program. Our program
partners within the hospital – we work very closely with the medical team,
so that's the doctors, the nurses, the specialists as well as the Child Life
team and the social work team. Oftentimes we can't do our job,
really, without them. We need them for telling us about what accommodation
students might need when they transition back to school and signing those papers
that the school needs a doctor's signature on. We also work really closely
with the social work team so that's if we get a referral or if we find out that
one of our students hasn't been able to return to school after a stay in the
hospital, then we can work and figure out what's going on there. Outside of the
hospital, probably one of our most important partners is the student's home
district. On the floor I work, which is the ninth floor, the average length of
stay for a student is maybe five to 10 days, so we really want to
make sure that when they transition back to school it goes as smoothly as
possible. We work very closely with the
student's home school to get any work sent that they've missed or to set up a
plan that will help that student succeed when they return to their home community.
I feel so grateful to be in this position. I started here actually at
OHSU working as a room service associate. I was working there – I want to say it
was about 2011 to 2013 – and the populations I served were 10 South
which is the Hem/Onc floor, 10 North (intermediate care) and then the eighth
floor, which is the PICU. So after I stopped working here I really loved
being at Doernbecher and wanted to continue to serve patients that were
here at Doernbecher and so I sought out Volunteer Services.
When I talked to the volunteer team I mentioned that I was back in school
receiving my master's of Education and they told me that there was a hospital
school program at Doernbecher. So they linked me with one of the school
teachers in the program Kerri Russell and I was able to volunteer with her for
a little under a year and then once I had to part ways because my
academics and work schedule got a little too rigorous and too demanding, Kerri kept
me in her contacts and notified me when MESD was hiring and it just so
happened that they were hiring right when I graduated my program!
So I got hired on and this is my third year with the Hospital School Program. Almost
every day I get to work with a student that feels like a success story, but I do
have a student in mind that I was able to work with her during her sophomore
year. Due to her diagnosis she was out of school for most of her sophomore
year, so we were able to use kind of a combination of her school district's work
as well as MESD has the Odysseyware program for us to enroll students in so
we were able to enroll her in some Odysseyware classes. Being able to
work with her on those courses, she didn't get behind on any of her credits
despite having not actually been to school during that sophomore year.
I just got a phone call from her family saying that she's ready to start junior
year without being credit deficient and feels kind of ready and like it's gonna
be a very successful start, so that was just a such a privilege for me to be
able to work with such a strong student and just such a fighter.
All the props go to the student – I was there kind of helping with the
instruction, but she really made it happen and that just really reminded me
of why I'm here and what I do here, so it's very special.