Hello fellow nurses and WSNA members!

My name is Elena Schensted and I am ecstatic to serve as Secretary/Treasurer for our WSNA local unit. I have been a public health nurse for nearly 7 years, graduating from Seattle University's College of Nursing in 2016. I began my career as a Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) nurse at the non-profit ChildStrive in Snohomish County, where I did home visits with first time mothers and their children. After an amazing 5 years as a NFP nurse, I was ready to both reduce my commute and serve the community that I am privileged to live in. So, in 2021 I made the transition to PHSKC and joined the First Steps team at the Columbia City clinic! Since then, I have been working with families in the First Steps program, mostly doing home visits with new immigrant and refugee families and have also begun a role as the Community Service Office (CSO) nurse for the Eastside, providing family planning services. I am also currently working towards becoming an IBCLC (lactation consultant) and sat for the exam in March of 2023!

In my spare time, I enjoy hiking (working on doing 52 hikes in 2023!), cooking anything and everything, traveling as much as I can (pre-COVID), reading (I am a huge Harry Potter fan and re-read the series every summer), doing yoga, exploring Seattle's parks and bakeries with my partner Holt, and playing with our kitten KiKi!

While unions have always been important to me, joining the contract bargaining team this last year amplified just how vital, empowering, and impactful unions can be. I recognize and appreciate the immense power of a collective force for good, and I believe that nurses' voices are SO important to change our systems, policies, and country for the better! I'm excited for the opportunity to dive deeper into union work and serve my profession in a way that I am immensely passionate about.

In addition to union work, both professionally and personally, I am passionate about social justice, anti-racism work, trauma informed care, ACEs, reproductive justice, responsive/gentle parenting techniques, and lactation support!

I look forward to working with you all and will do all I can to empower PHSKC nurses, helping to make our voices heard!" As admin for our WSNA Instagram page @phskc_staffnurses, I invite you to follow us as a community of professional union nurses.

In solidarity,
Elena