Taryn Temples, MSN, RN, RNC‐NIC, CNE, is an Instructor at the UAB School of Nursing and the UABSON Faculty Facilitator of the Booker T. Washington K8 Health Club, working with seventh and eighth grade students who are interested in a potential health care career.
I was in eighth grade when I decided to become a nurse. During that time, I had some key mentors in my life who poured into me, helped me see my own strengths, talked to me about nursing and made it sound like something I wanted to be a part of. Fast forward 25 years, and I am now blessed with the opportunity to do the same.
I joined Dr. Felesia Bowen’s Health Resources and Services Administration MAGIC City Health grant team in September 2023 to use my background in maternal-child health nursing and love of teaching in all forms to give back to the community of Titusville. Our grant goals are to promote positive health behaviors in children and their family units and develop the future nursing workforce. The UAB School of Nursing is just one of several community organizations that has come into Booker T. Washington K8 School to provide club opportunities for middle school students, helping get them excited about and thinking ahead toward possible career options. The School’s partnership with Booker T. began in 2022, and I started leading the Booker T. Washington K8 Health Club during the 2023-2024 school year. Clubs are open to all interested seventh and eighth grade students.
In the 2023-2024 school year, I used the American Red Cross Babysitter’s Training curriculum during club sessions. The ARC’s curriculum plans are easy to follow and appropriate for teaching lay people in the community. The students learned about topics like leadership, home safety, early childhood development and play, infant care, first aid, emergency response and CPR. UABSON BSN students enrolled in the Maternal-Child Health Honors Nursing Practicum course helped facilitate club lessons and teach first aid and CPR skills. We had so much fun working with these middle schoolers together. They were so smart and asked excellent questions.
In May 2024, the Health Club students visited the School for an end-of-the-year field trip, which also served as a babysitter’s skills check-off. They toured our simulation space, shadowed nursing students in the skills lab and completed their own babysitting simulation case in the home health suite. This visit brought everything together for them when they were put in a realistic situation and jumped into action using the knowledge they had gained in the Health Club. I used the same methods of learning and simulation that we use with nursing students, and the Health Club students reacted and reflected on the simulation in very similar ways to our nursing students.
It was amazing to watch these middle schoolers grow throughout the year. Some signed up for the club but were not entirely sure what to expect, so it was wonderful to see them act with confidence by the end of the year. I explained how babysitting really is a great first step to nursing—you learn to put someone else’s health and safety above your own and can provide life-saving intervention when it really matters.
Many of the students left the club with an increased interest in pursuing nursing or other health professions in the future. Several said they learned skills they can use now to babysit for friends and family, and two went on to paying jobs as counselors in training over the summer through Birmingham’s Kids and Jobs program.
It’s exciting for me to see a spark, to watch these students make connections and realize how they can use critical thinking and leadership skills to make a difference in their family and community. It’s also fulfilling to nurture their potential and do my part in encouraging them toward a future career. Becoming a nurse was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I feel privileged to have come from a place where I had those mentors who believed in me and served as amazing role models that have inspired me to get where I am today. My only hope is that these Health Club students can look back someday and feel the same way.