Maplewood’s Jan Kaminsky is one of 10 local area nurses to be selected for honors at New York Yankees Nurse Heroes night at Yankee Stadium on June 20. Kaminsky is being honored for her work as a “tireless nurse advocate for some of the most vulnerable members of our population … LGBTQ+ youth.”
Local residents can help Kaminsky be the one lucky nurse amongst the 10 honorees to get her family to the sky box by voting here.
From Kaminsky’s post on Maplewood Moms:
Shameless ask! 🙂
I have been fortunate to have been selected as one of 10 New York Yankees Nurse Heroes, and will be honored at the game on June 20th. One of the ten of us will receive tickets to bring our families to the Delta Sky Suite, which as children of civil servants my kids and I have never seen! 😉 Won’t you take pity on my children and give them their one chance to see their dear old mother from that vantage point?
Please vote, thank you! One vote per EMAIL ADDRESS. The blue voting box itself is midway down the page just past the names and bios.
THANKS! 🙂
Here’s Kaminsky’s bio from the nurses.org page:
Jan Kaminsky, PhD, RN, is a tireless nurse advocate for some of the most vulnerable members of our population. She has worked with and for LGBTQ+ youth in a variety of positions, from a bedside nurse assisting youth at risk for suicide to a community organization that she co-founded to provide the important intervention of social and family support for transgender youth.
LGBTQ+ youth are at particular risk for bullying, which has been found to begin as early as fifth grade. We know that bullying, harassment, and intimidation set vulnerable students up for higher risk of substance use, mental health concerns, and self-harm including suicide risk. For example, the Centers for Disease Control recently reported that for transgender high school students, 34.6% of students had attempted suicide in the past 12 months.
LGBTQ+ students also expressed high rates of sexual risk-taking behavior; rape and other victimization; absenteeism from school to avoid violence or threats of violence either en route to/from school or during the school day; feelings of depression or hopelessness; and increased use of hard drugs. Jan is determined to improve the health of LGBTQ+ youth and improve these distressing statistics with her work with LGBTQ+ youth through education, activism, and community organizing.
She also is married with three children, is a Professor at the City University of New York, the Founder of the National LGBTQ+ Nurses Association, and the Director of Education for Rainbow Health Consulting. She should be very proud of her community health work and is truly an example of what a nurse should be.
“Her work with youth saves lives every single day, and she should be commended for it,” her nominator notes. “I can’t think of a more deserving person to be honored at the New York Yankees Nurse Night!”
