Nursing students in the community: entrepreneurial strategy and proponent of changes

ABSTRACT Objective: To report the insertion of the nursing students of the Franciscan University Center in the community through the project Adopting a Family, contributing to critical thinking within the Nursing academic production and its articulation to collective health. Results: In the professors’ evaluation, the activity represented an effective articulation and insertion of the university in the community; for the students, it allowed for spaces of construction, deconstruction and negotiation with the unknown and the uncertain; for the families, it enabled the feeling of being remembered and valued as human beings and citizens. Through the experiences had, the transformation of health practices goes through the emergence and valuation of new knowledge. Final considerations: The insertion of the university in the community is constituted by an entrepreneurial strategy that is proponent of changes, due to its more effective and resolute outreach of health issues proposed by the national health system.