Wright State nursing, social work students experience challenges of poverty in simulation

Wright State nursing and social work students played roles to help them better understand the challenges their future patients or clients may experience during the Community Action Poverty Simulation, organized by the College of Health, Education and Human Services

For a few hours on a recent afternoon, Wright State University nursing and social work students pretended to be little kids, heads of households, desperate single parents — all of whom were experiencing poverty and facing challenges, headaches and heartaches.

“This is not a game,” an organizer told the assemblage of about 70 students. “This is real life.”

Such was the opening of the Community Action Poverty Simulation, an interprofessional education event organized by Wright State’s College of Health, Education and Human Services, which includes the nursing and social work programs. The simulation was conducted in the Student Union Atrium on April 15.

In the simulation, students took on the roles of members of 24 families, all facing various challenging but typical circumstances of those in poverty.

At the start of the simulation exercise, each family was given a card explaining its unique circumstances. The families then had to provide food, shelter and other necessities by accessing various community resources during four 15-minute periods.

Marty Sexton, Ph.D., associate dean of the College of Health, Education and Human Services, told the students she was confident they would leave the simulation with a much different appreciation for the cost of poverty.

About 20 volunteers played the roles of community resource providers, including a school, general employment, social services, a utility company, a bank, a child care center, a pawn shop and a mortgage and rental office.

As the simulation progressed, the students found that balancing family needs, a job, child care, budgets and life in general while in poverty was demanding. Some in the simulation were evicted, jailed or lost custody of their “children.”

“It was striking to watch the increase in agitation as the time progressed,” said volunteer Nick Eddy, who staffed a table representing a payday advance agency. “For many of the participants, this type of budgeting is utterly new to them. Add the onus of limited funds and they can see just how difficult it can be to get by.”

“I believe many of the students had their eyes opened to circumstances that (others) may be facing,” said Eddy, operations and volunteer manager for Clothes That Work, a nonprofit organization that provides job-interview clothing and help to people in need.

The poverty simulation was designed to help students understand the importance of treating people in poverty with compassion, respect and dignity.

Asia Fuqua, director of marketing and events at Clothes That Work, also volunteered.

“I think this is something that all people who work in the human services sector should experience at least once. It gives them an opportunity to experience firsthand what under-resourced individuals go through on a daily basis as they strive to reach self-sufficiency,” said Fuqua, who earned a Master of Public Administration from Wright State in 2018.

“I believe students walked away from the simulation with a new appreciation for the importance of treating people in poverty with compassion, respect and dignity,” Sexton said. “During the debriefing, one student was brave enough to say, ‘This is real everyone. I went through this. I took my child on a bus, waited for hours, only to learn I wasn’t able to be seen that day.’”

At the end of the simulation, Melonya Cook, director of the Master of Social Work program, told the students how they can advocate on behalf of people experiencing poverty by educating, volunteering, writing letters and socializing with people of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

“My hope is that after experiencing a simulated month in the life of poverty these future nurses and social workers will be inspired to work together to change the cycle of poverty in our communities,” said Sexton, who is also a professor of nursing and director of interprofessional education in the College of Health, Education and Human Services.

The simulation was supported by a grant from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and planned by Wright State’s Departments of Nursing and Social Work.