Petrina Barbas is a fourth year nursing student at Ryerson University.  She has completed a Bachelor of Health Sciences at Western University, where her interests in health promotion, health policy and public health began.  As a nursing student, Petrina has taken on many leadership roles past and present, such as serving on the Executive Committee for the 2016 Regional CNSA Conference and acting as the RNAO Region 7 Student Lead for the 2017-2018 Academic Year.  As a strong advocate for harm reduction and health equity, she is also serving on a panel to inform a new RNAO Best Practice Guideline for Supervised Injection Services, which she hopes will guide nurses and other health professionals in providing a safe and compassionate space for those who are impacted by the social determinants of health.

She actively promotes the benefits of joining professional nursing associations, such as RNAO, among her nursing peers and has also organized workshops and online seminars to help her peers learn more about community and public health nursing.  In her role as Student Affiliate on the CHNIG Board of Directors, she has played an influential role in forming a Student Committee alongside Harshdeep Hehar, former Student Affiliate, and under the mentorship and guidance of Past-President, Cindy Baker-Barill.  The Student Committee provides an opportunity for students to develop leadership qualities while undertaking initiatives on healthy public policy change and articulating the value of community health nursing.

In the future, Petrina hopes to practice in a community health setting where she can work collaboratively and holistically with clients and communities, and promote their health and wellbeing through community capacity building, social justice and public policy change.  She also hopes to pursue graduate studies in the near future.

Contact the Student Representative at Student@CHNIG.org