Nursing honor society presents award to local advocacy group
U.Va. Sigma Theta Tau chapter Beta Kappa presents community service award to local child and family health advocacy group, Jefferson Area CHiP
Contact: Christine Phelan Kueter: 434-982-3312
(4-25-12) The University of Virginia School of Nursing honor society Beta Kappa, a chapter of the international nursing honor society Sigma Theta Tau, recently selected the Jefferson Area Children’s Health Improvement Program (CHiP) to receive its 2012 Community Service Award.
For 20 years, Jefferson Area CHiP has partnered with families with children from infancy to age 6 and pregnant women to ensure that their children have a healthy beginning in a nurturing, stable and healthy home. Through a comprehensive home visiting approach, Community Health Nurses and Family Support Workers offer families health education and health care access, parenting education and support, and provide a bridge to other community resources. This empowers parents so that they can provide the best opportunity for a healthy and successful future for their children.
Since its founding in 1991 as one of eight CHiP sites throughout Virginia, Jefferson Area CHiP has served over 4,000 children in more than 2,500 families in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna and Louisa.
U.Va.’s Sigma Theta Tau chapter, Beta Kappa – more than 400 members strong – is a group of nursing professionals and nursing students who achieve at the highest academic level while remaining heavily involved in community service. Since 1991, U.Va. School of Nursing students have participated in clinical work at the Jefferson Area CHiP, overseen by faculty mentors Mary Gibson and Deborah Conway.
The Community Service Award is one of seven awards bestowed annually or every other year by Sigma Theta Tau, Beta Kappa chapter, to area nursing students, nursing professionals and organizations. Sigma Theta Tau includes more than 125,000 active members in 90 countries. Chapter Beta Kappa was begun in 1972.
The non-monetary award will be presented to CHiP executive director Judy Smith on May 4 during a 7 p.m. dinner on the Lawn’s Garden Room in Hotel E, after a reception at Pavilion IX, the home of nursing school dean Dorrie Fontaine and her husband Barry. CHiP’s nominators – including Robert Boyle, pediatrics professor at UVA Children’s Hospital, nurse Vickie Southall, a member of the Beta Kappa chapter, Charlottesville attorney Russell Schundler and representatives from the United Way-Thomas Jefferson Area – will also be on hand.
Former winners of the award include the Charlottesville Senior Center; Martha Jefferson Hospital’s James E. Haden; the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad; Representative Mitch Van Yahres; Senator Emily Couric; and Gordon Walker, of the Jefferson Area Board of Aging.
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