{"id":12728,"date":"2021-02-23T15:20:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T20:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=12728"},"modified":"2023-01-09T11:25:40","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T16:25:40","slug":"a-force-for-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/a-force-for-change\/","title":{"rendered":"A Force for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Confronting public health issues has always been a top priority for school nurses. During her 17 years working in the Middletown, New Jersey, school district, Eileen Gavin \u201903, \u201910M has helped students who were dealing with mental health issues, abusing drugs, and grappling with food scarcity at home. \u201cEverything that happens in our communities is reflected in our schools,\u201d says Gavin, \u201cand school nurses have their hands on the pulse of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside\">\n<header class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside-header aside-header\"><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-scholarship-made-it-possible\">A Scholarship Made it Possible<\/h2><\/header>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-magazine-aside-body aside-body\">\n<p>The H.R. Young Scholarship, available to families of Goldman Sachs employees, paid for Gavin\u2019s entire Master\u2019s of School Nursing degree program at Monmouth. \u201cThat scholarship played a big role in my career,\u201d says Gavin. \u201cIt made it possible for me to get my master\u2019s&nbsp;<em>and&nbsp;<\/em>to continue on to do my post-master\u2019s. When you\u2019re going to school at the same time your kids are, a scholarship can become the key to advancing your own education.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>Never has that been more evident than the past year, as countless school nurses landed on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. They prepared school reopening plans, screened students for symptoms, and even contact-traced outbreaks. For Gavin personally, 2020 was also the year she threw herself deeper into effecting change, through both legislative efforts and COVID-19 strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen I see something that\u2019s not working correctly, I always want to change it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhether it\u2019s systematic or just personally, I want to see how we can do it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gavin has been a nurse since 1983, but her state-level activism ignited in 2014, shortly after she participated in a health leadership program through Johnson &amp; Johnson. The opioid epidemic was surging, and she\u2019d been hearing from parents who were terrified that their kids might overdose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She wanted the opioid reversal drug Narcan available in schools. With support from her then-superintendent William George \u201997M\u2014now a Teaching Fellow at the University\u2014Gavin developed Narcan protocols and procedures for her own district that were later replicated throughout the state. She also advocated for legislation requiring that Narcan be made available in all New Jersey high schools. \u201cThat kind of propelled me into the limelight as an expert,\u201d she says now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was ready for it, thanks in part to her multiple degrees from Monmouth. Gavin completed her B.S. in nursing in 2003 and continued on to a Master\u2019s of School Nursing degree, followed by a Post-Master\u2019s Certificate in Advanced Practice Nursing, all while working as a nurse, volunteering at a clinic for uninsured patients, and raising her three children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMonmouth is a small school, and I was an adult learner going to class with younger students, so I could have easily been discouraged,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I was very much <em>encouraged<\/em> and promoted by the faculty to be a change agent.\u201d That support and recognition she received from nursing faculty members, particularly Associate Professor Laura Jannone, gave her the confidence to take on the state-level advocacy work, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the pandemic struck last March, Gavin worked with her local health department to develop a training video and webinar for school nurses across the state who, like her, were suddenly tasked with contact tracing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a legislative co-chair for the New Jersey State School Nurse Executive Board, she also urged State Senator Theresa Ruiz to propose a state-level school nurse consultant position\u2014something 44 other states already had in place. Ruiz wrote the proposal and Gavin testified on it multiple times. Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill into law on Sept. 14, 2020. \u201cTo be part of legislation from conception to when it\u2019s passed is probably one of the highest honors,\u201d says Gavin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the final days of 2020, Gavin was reflecting on these bright spots within a tumultuous year\u2014and preparing to administer COVID vaccines as a volunteer through the Monmouth County Health Department\u2019s Medical Reserve Corps. Whether she\u2019s working inside a school, testifying in the State Senate, or soon, administering life-saving vaccines to people in New Jersey, \u201cI\u2019m a nurse every day, 24\/7,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople are always texting me, emailing me questions. Neighbors even come to my door if their child is hurt. Being a nurse is just part of my DNA. It\u2019s a sense of service, and I think a lot of nurses have that in them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the school nurse\u2019s office to the statehouse, Eileen Gavin is helping to shape how we tackle public health issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":12730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":55,\"y\":35}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back"],"thumbnail":"<img width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-300x200.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-12730 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" role=\"presentation\" style=\"object-position:55% 35%\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-1120x747.jpg 1120w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-560x373.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-280x187.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-320x213.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-640x427.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-2800x1867.jpg 2800w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-1400x933.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-828x552.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-360x240.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm-9x6.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/gavin_mm.jpg 3000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>","catString":"The Back","issue":"Spring 2021","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12728"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12758,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728\/revisions\/12758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}