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Orlando, Jan. 9, 2007 — Senior nursing students recently collected 87 cell phones, along with chargers and accessories, as part of an initiative designed to give victims of domestic violence the capability to dial 911 for help in an emergency.
The students presented the phones to representatives from UCF Victim Services at a Jan. 8, 2007, meeting in the Student Union on the Orlando campus.
Left to right: Christine Mouton, director of UCF Victim Services; Deanne Fenton, Student Nurses' Association president; Jean Leuner, director of the School of Nursing; Jen Augarten, SNA vice president; Pam Ark, assistant professor of nursing and SNA adviser.
"The functional phones are programmed to dial 911," said Christine Mouton, director of the victim services' office. "We then give them to someone who comes to us and doesn't have access to a [cell] phone."
Mouton also said her office sells particularly valuable phones to obtain funds to purchase clothing and food or to rent a room for several nights for victims seeking help.
Mouton told the students: "What you have learned [through this initiative] will be valuable to you as practitioners working with victims of domestic violence."
She also told them that an initiative like this could easily be started anywhere they go, such as their workplace.
The cell phone initiative was launched last October — national domestic violence month — by members of the campus' Student Nurses' Association.
The SNA went on to extend the project to include all senior nursing students, who then turned it into a competition among students at 10 Community Nursing Coalitions operated by the School of Nursing. The Oakridge CNC took first place for collecting the most phones.
"This was the first time the students ran this initiative," said Pam Ark, assistant professor of nursing and faculty adviser to the SNA. "They plan to make it an annual event."
For more information about the initiative, contact Mouton at cmouton@mail.ucf.edu or Ark at park@mail.ucf.edu.
Story and photos by Karen Guin
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