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Collaborative Practice I students recognized for work with community partner

ProLiteracy—the largest adult literacy and basic education membership organization in the nation—will recognize Seeds of Literacy, a 2020-21 Collaborative Practice I (CPI) community partner, and their student teams this year at an awards luncheon during the annual ProLiteracy Conference Sept. 21. 

Seeds of Literacy, which provides free, personalized education to empower adults to thrive in the community, was selected through a competitive application process. CPI is the interprofessional service learning experience for health professions and social work students. The experience is coordinated by the Office of Interprofessional and Interdisciplinary Education and Research.

Carmine Stewart, vice president of programming at Seeds of Literacy, submitted the application on behalf of Seeds of Literacy and the two student teams from CPI who worked with her on the project. The interprofessional student teams created health literacy lessons and reading passages for varying literacy levels on a number of topics identified as important by Seeds students, including the relationship between life functions and energy intake, genetics and heredity, evolution, the human body, heart attacks, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, domestic violence and breast cancer. 

The teams, composed of students from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, School of Dental Medicine and Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, worked together with Stewart over the course of the academic year to complete their lessons while learning about and practicing teamwork skills.

Team members working with Seeds of Literacy included:

  • Osedebamen Aigbe (Medicine)
  • Victoria Blaga (Medicine)
  • Robyn Boyd (Mandel School)
  • Kristen Byrne (Physician Assistant)
  • Rebecca Garner (Dental Medicine)
  • Salih Hind (Mandel School)
  • Bram Hollady (Dental Medicine)
  • Lauren Huang (Medicine)
  • Rupleen Kaur (Medicine)
  • Tania Montenegro (Genetic Counseling)
  • Dakota Nollner (Medicine)
  • Abigail Snyder (Medicine)