Learning through partnership with communities: A transformational journey Ann Marie Carroll a, ⁎, Tracey Clancy a , Chandandeep Kaur Bal b , Shams Lalani a , Leanne Woo a a Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada b Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada abstract article info Article history: Received 26 November 2016 Revised 18 August 2017 Accepted 5 September 2017 Available online xxxx The purpose of this article, co-authored by instructors and students, is to highlight student learning and a stu- dent-developed model of Community Development that occurred through a service-based clinical placement. As part of their clinical community practicum, a group of second year nursing students were partnered with a group of seniors living in an inner city community. By deconstructing and categorizing ongoing student involve- ment with this community, students were able to make linkages to the many concepts that together form a com- munity development approach to care, leading to the creation of a model of community development (the Community Health Advancement Model) to guide their evaluation. The process of evaluating nursing student progress from a community development perspective, and the subsequent creation of the model, highlighted several noted challenges of working within a service-learning model of care: the high level of self-direction and critical thinking required by students, and the lack of known outcomes. This article captures the students' struggles with and subsequent mastery through growth in understanding of these concepts. The model of com- munity development, an outcome of their learning, showcases their depth of understanding of the importance of nurturing partnerships as foundational to providing care at a community level. This model may be useful within education of undergraduate nursing education by providing a visual road map of the process of community de- velopment. This article is an exemplar of the capacity and depth of understanding that is possible when students learn through community partnership. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Community development Partnership Undergraduate nursing education Value of service-learning through community partnership Community health integrates community and societal needs with student learning, and is an intentional focus within the education of nurses and other health professions (Kemp, 2003). As such, nurse edu- cators have been challenged to balance acute care and community health with the needs of the populations and students who will practice in an evolving healthcare system (Holt, 2011; Ross-Staats, 2003). This balance requires us to utilize a holistic approach that encompasses all levels of prevention with individuals and populations, across the life span, and in all contexts of nursing practice (Holt, 2011; Kemp, 2003; Ross-Staats, 2003; Swider & Kulbok, 2015). To address the complexity of current day healthcare, our nursing ed- ucation program embraced a context-relevant integrated curriculum (Rosenau, Watson, Vye-Rogers, & Dobbs, 2015). Integrated learning speaks to the demonstrated ability to synthesize knowledge from a va- riety of perspectives and to apply this understanding to multiple con- texts (Barber, 2014). Pedagogical approaches that engage communities, often called service learning, combine community service and learning goals in ways that embrace integration and enhance both student growth and serve the common good (Bandy, 2017). Intention- ally embedding community health at the beginning of the program serves as a context in which students learn foundational ways of think- ing about nursing practice that recognize the complexity of real world health care. The benefits to students of community engaged service learning include the positive impact on students' academic learning and outcomes such as enriched understanding and cognitive develop- ment with a greater capacity to engage in critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving (Bandy, 2017). Service learning through communi- ty engagement also enhances students' ability to understand complexi- ty and ambiguity, in addition to the ability to apply their learning in the real world. The purpose of this paper is to articulate that novice undergraduate nursing students have the capacity, through a service-learning ap- proach, to integrate complex theoretical constructs like community de- velopment into real-world contexts of practice. The following exemplar of one student groups' journey within a larger ongoing service-based clinical initiative narrates this learning journey. By evaluating the ongo- ing partnership through the lens of community development, this group of novice students articulates their growth in understanding of the im- portance of nurturing partnerships in providing care at a community level and the impact this process had on their understanding of Journal of Professional Nursing xxx (2017) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB, Canada. E-mail address: amcarrol@ucalgary.ca (A.M. Carroll). YJPNU-01084; No of Pages 5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2017.09.001 8755-7223/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Professional Nursing Please cite this article as: Carroll, A.M., et al., Learning through partnership with communities: A transformational journey, Journal of Professional Nursing (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2017.09.001