Northland Community and Technical College to hold summer camp showcasing health and human services programs
Apr. 8—EAST GRAND FORKS — The second year for Northland Community and Technical College's East Grand Forks Liftoff Summer Camp is coming soon, offering those 12 years and older the opportunity to learn about the different kinds of health and human services that are part of the health care sphere.
Debra Beland, radiology and phlebotomy program director and spearhead of the camp, said it's still in its beginning. She is excited for more people to hear about it and attend.
"We're just getting off our feet," she said.
The camp will be a free, one-day event held 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. July 23 at the East Grand Forks campus. Participants will receive a free lunch and be put in groups of similarly aged people. Beland said around 60 people came to last year's camp, which was held twice, once in June and again in July. Fewer people came to the June camp, so it was decided it would only be held in July this year.
The decision behind accepting adults, as well as inviting "participants" instead of "students," is to get the attention of parents and those already in the workforce, Beland said.
"Even somebody my age who would like to come and is thinking of changing careers, or just wants to know more about a health career (can come)," she said. "Maybe they want to guide their child into a health career. We definitely want the 12-year-old, the 15-year-old, the 17-year-old going into college. ... But, we're just trying to develop how important health careers are."
At the camp, groups go through different scenarios focused on different areas of health care work. For example, one group might start at a staged accident and see how an ambulance crew takes care of a patient, such as a victim of a hit-and-run. Groups last year got to ride in an ambulance from one side of the building to a helicopter pad. Then, they go to the paramedicine program to see how paramedics care for the patient, and then onto the nursing program, which looked at a patient's spine issue, hip fracture and difficulty breathing. The respiratory program takes care of the breathing trouble and might show the group how to perform CPR. Once stabilized, the patient gets X-rayed and discharged. From there, the group sees how physical therapy and occupational therapy helps the patient with remaining issues.
"The younger ones really enjoyed it," Beland said. "'I saved that guy's life like three times,' they would say, and I'd be like, 'yes, you did.'"
The importance of the summer camp, Beland said, is to both attract new students to Northland's health and human services programs and to show kids, as well as adults, the diverse array of health care jobs that exist.
"Everybody might think of health care as nurses and doctors and they don't understand all the other health professions that go into supporting those roles, and how much we all have to work together to care for one patient," she said. "This camp just gives them that opportunity to see how we work together and what the individual duties are."
Registration will be open until the camp is filled, Beland said. Those interested in attending can learn more and sign up on Northland's Liftoff Summer Camp
web page
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