A Prince Albert Catholic School Division nursing agreement with the University of Saskatchewan will continue for another year.
Last school year, the division hosted 16 nurses completing their practicum with the USask College of Nursing. In a report presented at the board’s regular meeting on June 15, the division confirmed the program would continue for the 2026-27 school year.
Prince Albert Catholic Director of Education Lorel Trumier said administrators at schools that hosted the practicum students saw the value they brought.
“We know that those students give so much to our staff and students when they’re in our schools,” Trumier said. “We hope that they get these useful opportunities to learn about their trade and their practice of serving a community.”
Next school year the division will have fourteen students and each student will complete 216 hours, two days a week from September until December of 2026.
Nursing students will be involved in creating health teaching, health promotion and disease prevention strategies. The nursing students will also develop resources for staff and students according to school needs.
“They’ll teach different aspects of the curriculum in grade appropriate levels,” Trumier explained. “(That’s) simple things like hand washing in the primary areas, and they get to explore working with students to help them learn the benefits of such a thing.”
Nurses will also be able to do presentations about health-related subjects.
St. John Community School, Ecole St. Anne School, Ecole Holy Cross School, and St. Catherine School will each have two nursing students assigned.
Catholic School Division trustees receive year-end mental health report
Prince Albert Catholic School Division trustees received an outline of mental health and well-being initiatives and supports in the division achievements at their regular meeting on June 15.
Superintendent Charity Dmytruk provided the update. Following the presentation, Director of Education Lorel Trumier reflected on how much work was done in this area in the past year.
“It’s a great time to give that year-end report about how things have been managed to support one of our main priorities in our school division is to support the mental health and capacity building of our students,” Trumier said.
Trumier said they also appreciate the school division staff who support different work on mental health in the division. Another example is the Mental Health Capacity Building partnership with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) at St. John Community School which this year expanded to St. Francis.
“We had the expansion at St. Francis School this year and some great work’s happened in that regard,” Trumier said.
The MHCB initiative focuses on prevention, health promotion, early identification and intervention by helping youth better manage their feelings and find help if they become overwhelmed.
The MHCB pilot started at St. John Community School in September, 2022. The initiative operates 12 months a year and focuses on community outreach in the summer.
The division is also part of the working group on the Mental Health Priority of the new Provincial Education Plan. The division is part of the working group for two milestones in the priority.
The Division also utilizes the Red Cross Beyond the Hurt Bully Prevention Program but has brought the faith-based perspective into it.
“We continued our bullying prevention program and that’s significant,” Trumier said. “We have very intentional elements that we do in our schools based on our faith.
“It doesn’t matter what school you go to in our Catholic system, there is a bully prevention program that we’ve been working on for many years.”
Trumier also pointed to the work being done as the division is part of the Community Threat Assessment and Support Protocols.
She explained that seeing all the work in the area made her reflect on all of the work completed this school year.
“The work has been very fruitful this year and very impactful and we’re going to really applaud the team in our schools and our team here to achieving that goal,” Trumier said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
