Sue Smith, coordinator of the Alfred Health P.A.R.T.Y. program
A CCRN at Alfred Health, Sue Smith has spent her entire career in the emergency department. As she has been nursing since 1986, she has seen enough trauma to last 1000 lifetimes. It seems little wonder, therefore, that a key focus of hers for the past decade or so has been the Alfred’s Prevent Alcohol and Risk‐Related Trauma in Youth (P.A.R.T.Y) program.
The P.A.R.T.Y program is an interactive injury awareness and prevention program for young people, offering a rare look at the true impact of trauma. Developed in 1986 by an emergency nurse at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital – the largest trauma centre in Canada – and now operating at dozens of sites around the world, the program aims to reduce death and injury from alcohol, drug and risk-related incidents through exposure to clinical reality.
The P.A.R.T.Y program has been running at The Alfred since 2009 as an initiative of the National Trauma Research Institute. It primarily runs as a single day, in-hospital model for senior school students, who spend the day on site, hearing from nurses, doctors, paramedics, allied health professionals and others as they get a rare first-hand look at the journey of a trauma patient – through the emergency department, ICU, burns and trauma wards, rehab and recovery (if the patient is lucky enough to make it that far). The program can also be run online, via alternative outreach models, and for a range of participant cohorts (such as apprentices or navy recruits, or people referred through the justice system).
Sue has been the coordinator of P.A.R.T.Y at The Alfred since 2018 but has been involved with the program since it began in 2009. ‘And I have loved it from day one,’ she tells ANMF.
She loved it so much, in fact, that she’d even come in on her days off. So when the coordinator role became available, Sue was the natural choice. At the time, it was run by a team of four, including another critical care nurse, a researcher and an admin person. ‘And then COVID hit, and one by one the other three left.’
Now it’s just Sue. But she is so committed to P.A.R.T.Y that she won’t let anything stand in her way. ‘It’s a busy life,’ she says, ‘but I still love it. It helps that I’ve built up very good relationships over the years with everyone who’s been involved in the program – all the staff on the trauma ward, the burns ward, the intensive care ward, all of the allied health people, the doctors: the whole hospital is very supportive of P.A.R.T.Y.’
We know it works
Since 1986, multiple studies have documented the efficacy of the P.A.R.T.Y program. In 2018, for instance, researchers from the National Trauma Research Institute and Monash University concluded that ‘the P.A.R.T.Y. program at The Alfred engaged substantial numbers of youths and achieved significant improvements among key outcome measures’ (Emergency Medicine Australasia).
For Sue, while such studies are important and reflect what she sees on the ground – ‘that is, we know it works’ – the key metric is participants’ engagement.
‘You see them come in at the start of the day, and you know a lot of them are thinking “oh god, here we go”. But throughout the day I can definitely see a change in how they react.’
Sue believes this is because the program is not didactic. It’s not about ‘telling them not to go out and live your life,’ she says. ‘No one’s going to tell them not to go out and take drugs or drink alcohol. P.A.R.T.Y is just about giving them some information to take away at the end of the day, and allowing them to see what can happen if they’re not careful.’
While they’re in the hospital, Sue says, ‘they get unique access to the people involved in the care of a trauma patient, and they see the potential result of one decision you make – be it drugs, alcohol, fatigue, peer pressure. I always say to them: “you are so lucky to be here today. You literally get a backstage pass into the hospital; no one sees what you’re going to see today. Even as a patient or a family member you won’t see what you see today.”’
If the P.A.R.T.Y program ‘can stop even just one young person from being involved in trauma, then it has worked,’ Sue says. ‘That’s why I am really passionate about it.’
Find out more at partyalfred.org.
