Educational Media Reviews Online

The National Film Board of Canada in conjunction with the Street Nurse Program, Canada Wild Productions, and director Nettie Wild has created a dynamic resource for nursing education with Bevel Up: Drugs, Users and Outreach Nursing. The DVD contains four and a half hours of video footage, divided between a 45 min. documentary, a section titled “+Topics”, and “Reflections on Practice.” The latter two areas are shorter interviews with nurses, clients, ethicists and other experts that explain and comment on the variety of interactions depicted in the film. The documentary may also be accessed via chapters with teaching menus, and these are outlined further with learning activities and discussion points in the 100 page Teacher’s Guide.

Bevel Up is a terrific title. It refers to the needle angle for proper injection, and symbolically gives insight into the mission of the Vancouver, B.C. Street Nurses. In standard direct cinema documentary style, the film follows a handful of Street Nurses on location in the back streets of Vancouver helping to prevent the spread HIV, AIDS and STDs. Not only is this outreach program remarkable, but so are the relationships the nurses develop with the street people. It is clear they are highly skilled, highly trained professionals with an added talent that is noted early on in the film as being able to work effectively with marginalized populations. They’re not there to preach or stop drug use, but to encourage safe practices to help stop diseases most common in that population.

Director Nettie Wild’s skillful combination of training film and documentary is engrossing. She creates a connection for the viewer not only with the nurses, but with their clients as well. The intelligence and emotion of the street people is striking and at odds with the labels we often place on the marginalized in our society. This point is brought sharply into focus through the story of Becky and her pregnant daughter Liz, both heroin addicts, both needing medical care and both refusing to go to a traditional hospital because of the way they are treated there. Their plight highlights one of the most important aspects of Street Nurses jobs in fostering and sustaining respectful, healthy relationships with their clients.

Bevel Up shouldn’t be mistaken as a training package limited to nurses drawn to this type of work. It has messages for all types of nurses, particularly with regard to cultural competency and therapeutic communication. Nurses and other outreach caregivers working with aboriginal peoples, gay and lesbian communities, sex workers, and other groups largely influenced by drugs and alcohol will benefit from this program. The “+Topics” section is valuable for classroom settings to help analyze the situations in the film and promote class discussion. The topics cover a wide range of situations and go into detail on nurse safety, setting boundaries, building relationships as well as the neuroscience of drug use, drug use 101, and the reasons why people get into a life on the street. The nurses interview some of their clients, asking common questions that usually aren’t included in educational films but should be. The level of detail in this section is key to the effectiveness of this package as an educational resource. Bevel Up is valuable for all nursing programs at the college level, particularly those learning about outreach work in the streets, and additionally for social work programs.