Educational Theatre: Keeping Secrets

“Do you know the proper way to use a condom? Here let me show you,” said Monica to Eddie in a sexy comehither voice and playful manner. Marvin Gaye’s sultry song “Let’s get it on” plays in the background. Eddie leans back anticipating a sexy time. “Let’s practice on this,” Monica pulls out a banana and dashes the promise of promiscuity. Eddie groans.

Welcome to a scene from “Secrets,” part of Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theatre Programs. A different kind of theatre that provides health information to inspire teens and adults to make healthier choices relating to: abstinence; HIV/AIDS/STI transmission; resistance to peer pressure; and the risks of being sexually active.

After each hour-long performance, these four professional actors, who are trained as peer health educators, lead a question and answer session with the audience. This powerful way of teaching has lead to greater communication building between teens, their parents and adults in their lives. Secrets was created in conjunction with physicians, teachers, licensed counselors, and parents.

Plan With Your Heart: It's About The Kids

“Most of you came to this job because you care about kids,” said Alex Vila, the morning’s keynote speaker. “When you refine your vision go back to that one kid and make it very visually centered, drive the planning for your vision around that one kid.” Alex gave an uplifting talk using real-life examples of both program success stories and also how she grew into her role as a youth mentor.

She shared the story of Mario, a youth in the prison system. “I talked to him for 45 minutes about changing,” said the Colombian-born and raised Vila. At the end of the conversation he said to her, “Do not ask me to change, unless you can show me who to become.” The result of this epiphany led her to offer programs based around youth, their vision, and their goals. “It’s not about you but about the youth.”

Later, she used the exercise “How to fold a towel?” as a metaphor for program implementation. She brought up three people to demonstrate the right way to fold a towel. Of course, there is no right way. She then asked the volunteers to fold the towel into the bag, which fit just right. Later, she asked them to fold the same towel into a very small box. Of course only 15-20 percent of the towel fit. Her main point is to remain flexible with the program’s grant and implementation and to focus on the parts that impact youth. “Get out of your cubicle—check the temperature in your schools, walk your district,” said Alex, “get out and listen to young people.”

LGBTQ Insight: Keeping Our Youth Safe

The morning’s hot topic, “That’s So Gay! Combating Homophobia to Reduce LGBTQ Health Disparities” began with an interactive exercise: Know your gay celebrities! Luminaries include: Ricky Martin, Ellen de Generes, Lily Tomlin, Clay Aiken, Jody Foster, and the purple Teletubbie character “Tinky-Winky.”

Co-presenters Ilsa Bertolini and Kevin Gogin showed the groundbreaking LGBTQ website dedicated to “creating a safe place for all students.” Kevin told the story of the public reaction to the site’s presence, some negative and positive—and ways they mitigated the issues. They showed sobering statistics: higher incidence of alcohol and marijuana use; elevated mental health indicators for depression and suicide; and an increase of threats at school. Facilitators shared a powerful film addressing bullying with participants called "Let's Get Real."

Looking for Answers: Behavior, Student Population and Program Intervention

Dr. Carol Goodenow, Director of Coordinated School Health, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, opened up the second day as the morning’s keynote presenter: ”Identifying and Addressing Physical Activity and Nutrition Disparities—Dietary Patterns and Latino Youth.” Her goal: identify adolescent populations most at risk of poor nutrition and obesity; and use multiple strategies to help schools address those issues.


Dr. Goodenow said the achievement gap between Hispanic students and white/Anglo students is larger in Massachusetts than in the country as a whole. She asked the NPD partners to pair up with someone from another site and exchange answers regarding behavior, student population and program intervention. Answers included: Baltimore—African Americans are at risk for pregnancy, SDTs, and poor nutrition; Arkansas—has a unique population from the Marshall Islands (near Australia) with myriad health programs including TB; Wisconsin has a strategic plan including a community partnership with the United Way; and Los Angeles has a grant with the USDA for nutrition in the schools.

Marketing Your Program: Delivering the Message

“In these lean times you should be marketing to keep your job,” said Bill Baynes, co-presenter of “How to Promote, Get Support, and Market Your Programs” one of the afternoon’s breakout sessions. “Remember,” said Bill “one message does not fit all. Think of who you’re trying to reach. You don’t talk to kids the way you talk to school board members.” He held up advertisements for various cigarette print media and said there is a message/reward component in place. Kool: getting the girl for young men; Virigina Slims: strength and power for women; Marlboro: rugged independence for men. He suggested that the NPD partners embrace the same type of mindset—know your target audience and deliver the message.

Ira Sachnoff, co-presenter discussed Media 101: how marketing works including personalizing, targeting and rewarding. He said to get personal, put on a human face. In Media 102 the topics included: staying visible, identifying different kinds of media, and types of activities. The new media subject was discussed in greater detail. Both Ira and Bill showed the NPD partners progressive websites, blogs, cell phone texting trees, Facebook, Twitter and You Tube examples. Bill said “the most important part of marketing is to consistently implement all the way through—from start to finish. Don’t wait until the end of the project to begin marketing.”

Alaska: Alternative Schools Healthy Students Initiative

The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (EED) launched the Alternative Schools Healthy Students Initiative in the fall of 2008. This five-year initiative was created with the goal of reducing the student risk behaviors associated with disease, premature death, social challenges, and poor academic outcomes. It includes all Alaskan Alternative Schools (defined as serving high-risk students). The need for this initiative was identified by a review of National and State data which indicate that students in Alternative School settings are disproportionately affected by heightened levels of risk behaviors. Comparisons of risk behavior reported by students in Alternative Schools to students in Traditional Schools provide compelling evidence that targeting support to Alternative Schools is an efficient, focused, and strategic way to infuse extra support to Alaska’s most at-risk students.

The Alaska Alternative Schools Healthy Students Initiative is funded through a variety of federal funding sources such as the CDC Cooperative Agreement; Title IVA: Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act; Special Education; and the Department of Health and Human Services. This initiative provides support for the prevention of high-risk behaviors that contribute to HIV, STDs and Unintended Teen Pregnancies, including prevention of violence, alcohol, tobacco, and drug use as well as the support of programs and services to enhance positive behaviors. Statewide partners support identified sites, providing professional development, curricular resources, implementation mini-grants, support for writing additional grants, and data identification and collection.

In the area of Sexual Behavior, 2009 data indicate Alaska Alternative Students are much more likely to:

• Have ever had intercourse (82.2% vs. 43.5%)
• Have had sex before age 13 (11.5% vs. 5.1%)
• Have had sex with multiple partners (42.9% vs. 11.4%)
• Have had sex recently (65.5% vs. 30.4%)
• Have had alcohol/drugs before sex (27.7% vs. 17.1%)
• Not use a condom (54% vs. 37.8%)

2009 Alternative Schools YRBS data will provide the baseline data for our efforts with this population. A specific example of one program effort to address some of the Sexual Risk Behaviors would be our work with the Alternative Schools to address some of the barriers students were facing. We identified that it was reported that students were not using condoms because they could not access them in their rural communities. We worked with our health and social service and agency partners to provide free condoms that are now readily available in the identified Alternative settings.

• Contact Person - Terri Campbell
• Email Address - Terri.Campbell@alaska.gov
• Website Address - http://www.eed.state.ak.us/

Arkansas: Child Wellness Intervention Project

The Child Wellness Intervention Project “CWIP” is a project to address childhood obesity in Arkansas by strengthening health education and implementing quality physical education programs in the schools. The project is a collaboration between the AR Office of Coordinated School Health, the AR Tobacco Settlement Commission, AR Children’s Hospital and AR Center for Health Improvement.

The CWIP grant was funded with Tobacco Settlement dollars and 56 schools were awarded between $7,000 and $14,000. The funds were used to provide the schools with SPARK curriculum, equipment, Fitnessgram, HealthTeacher.com and all teacher trainings.

A comprehensive evaluation will be conducted by the AR Center for Health Improvement which we hope will show over time an improvement in attendance, behavior, academics and fitness levels of the students in these schools.

• Contact Person: Kathleen Courtney
• Email Address: Kathleen.Courtney@Arkansas.gov
• Website Address http://www.arkansascsh.org/

Baltimore: The Power of Partnerships

The national organization Healthy Teen Network received a grant from Johnson and Johnson to provide evidence-based training to the Baltimore City Health Department and Baltimore City Public Schools. The proposal included training, curricula and materials to health educators on the local health and educational levels. The identified curriculum was Making Proud Choices, consisted of 16 hours of training that included pre- and post assessments. Since its inception one of the goals of this collaboration is to have the educators of these partnering organizations co-teach the curriculum to students in the classroom.

• Contact Person: Alexia McCain
• Email Address: amccain@bcps.k12.md.us

Cherokee Nation: Tahlequah Public Schools Expands Sex Ed Program

As part of our CDC grant, we are trying to implement comprehensive reproductive health curricula in the middle and high schools within our 14 county tribal jurisdictional area which consists of 152 schools. We are taking very small steps toward reaching the entire area and are only doing 6 schools at a time. This has been no easy task as we live in the Bible belt and we have been met with some opposition regarding this and it seemed to be a very daunting adventure.

Our main success thus far in our grant has been obtaining an MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) with Tahlequah Middle School to begin a 12 week program entitled “Worth The Wait” in their sixth grade classes. Tahlequah was our first school to agree to an MOA with us and also, we have become trailblazers within that school district because never before has reproductive health been taught at this level at such an early age within this community. Our program has been featured on local broadcast news twice as well as area newspapers because of this. We are currently within our fourth week of this program and are being met with very high praise from school personnel, parents and students alike. We have also seen interest coming in from surrounding school districts as well.

• Contact Person: Terrill White
• Email Address: terrill-white@cherokee.org
• Website Address: http://www.cherokee.org/

Chicago: STI Testing Pilot Project

Our Local Education Agency (LEA), the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), have partnered with the Chicago Department of Public Health to test all 11th and 12th grade students in our school district for chlamydia and gonorrhea. In February 2009 a 6-school STI testing pilot project began. The schools were selected based on whether they have a School-based Health Center within them and if they’re in a community with high rates of STIs. The project has been modeled after the Philadelphia School District testing process. Students receive 20-30 minutes of education about STIs and the testing process, and then they all receive a brown paper bag with a test cup for urine collection. All students are then dismissed to monitored restrooms where they can choose to participate in the test or not. Once they emerge from the restroom with their brown paper bag they turn it in to a Chicago Department of Public Health representative where they receive brief counseling, they can ask questions and they receive further instructions about getting their test results and accessing health care facilities. The Chicago Public Schools are responsible for school coordination and providing educational assistance during the process.

We began our testing in three high schools located in the zip code area with the 2nd highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea in the city. The total student population of those three schools is 779. We were able to educate 388 of those students, and 278 of them went through with the testing. Of the students that tested, 27 tested positive for chlamydia and gonorrhea (24 chlamydia and 3 gonorrhea).

• Contact Person: Ira Rounsaville
• Email Address: irounsaville@cps.k12.il.us
• Website Address: http://www.cps.edu/

Delaware: Recruiting Participants for Professional Development to Target Youth in Need

In an effort to target professional development to schools in greatest need, the Delaware PD Team created a matrix of all middle schools and high schools to promote the implementation of evidence-based curricula on HIV Prevention. Variables in the matrix included percentage of minority students, percentage of poverty, AYP status, SLIM score and participation in PD event. The matrix is used as a tool to recruit our next group of teachers and youth development coordinators to attend curriculum PD events.

A partnership, called the “Stakeholders for HIV Prevention for Youth” was established to address needs for youth both in and out of school. The stakeholders include representatives from education, public health, State Children’s Department, HIV clinics, family planning agencies, wellness centers, 4-H, adolescent health service centers, LBGTQ Coalition, Higher Ed., parents and hospitals. The group provides expertise to the strategic planning process and identifies the needs of youth in high risk situations. The partners make recommendations to our professional development team and identify agencies that serve youth in need of HIV prevention education and services. Lead trainers invite youth service workers to the professional development events and provided follow-up and mentoring. The cost of the training is paid by the CDC cooperative agreement .

Delaware has made steady increases in the percentage of schools implementing evidence-based programs. Currently 50% of all public middle schools and high schools have adopted an effective curriculum.

• Contact Person: Janet Ray
• Email Address: jaray@doe.k12.de.us
• Website Address: www.doe.k12.de.us/programs/ci/content_areas/health.shtml

Detroit: Creating Safe Schools for Sexual Minority Youth

A Silent Crisis: Creating safe Schools for Sexual Minority Youth is a professional development workshop for administration, lead health teachers, counselors, social workers, school nurses and resource staff for the total school in educating staff on issues related to Gay, Lesbian, bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth. This is Detroit Public Schools 4th year providing the workshop to the district.

• Contact Person: Dr. Arlene Richardson
• Email Address: arlene.richardson@detroitk12.org

Hawaii: The Creation of our Locally Produced Video on HIV/AIDS

In 2006, the Hawaii Department of Education spearheaded an effort to reach its unique culture with a locally produced HIV prevention video. This 20-minute video, "HIV in Hawaii: Local People, Local Stories" features two individuals who tell their dramatic stories of what it is like to be living with HIV in the islands.

The video has been supplemented with the HIV prevention curricula, Positive Prevention. Over 150 teachers and counselors in Hawaii and Guam have been trained on the implementation of the video reaching over 5,000 students. The video has also been used as a training tool for HIV testers and counselors, nurses, and medical students from the Hawaii Department of Health, the Pacific Territories Department of Health, and the University of Hawaii.

• Contact Person: Julienne Nakano
• Email Address: julienne_nakano@notes.k12.hi.us
• Website Address: http://healthykeiki.k12.hi.us/

Iowa: Statewide Iowa Prevention and Care Conference

Since 1998 the Iowa Departments of Education and Public Health and the Iowa HIV Community Planning Group have co-sponsored ten statewide Iowa Prevention and Care Conference, our 11th will be held Sept.22-23, 2010 in Des Moines, IA.

We have had up to 450 participants from Iowa and surrounding states, including prevention and care providers, health care providers, community health planners, physicians, persons from community-based organizations, school teachers HIV educators, substance abuse counselors, health departments, hospitals and those who are HIV infected and affected.

• Contact Person: Sara Peterson
• Email Address sara.peterson@iowa.gov

Los Angeles: LGBTQ Resource Packet

For the last two years, we have been meeting with a Connect to Protect committee with a coalition of partners from Los Angeles. The committee has worked on a LGBTQ resource packet for two years and are finally ready to go to print.

The LGBTQ resource packet will be distributed District-wide and each principal, nurse, counselor, and health teachers will be provided with a copy of these materials to meet the needs of all our LGBTQ populations in Los Angeles. It will provide useful statistics for administrators, but more importantly, tools that will help the prevention-education in the classroom, awareness among the staff, and information to students regarding services.

We have partnered with our Southern California Gay Straight Alliance network and the University of California University, Los Angeles to help distribute the resource packets to a wider teen and young adult audience and to targeted community service providers for high risk populations like our gay youth.

• Contact Person: Tim Kordic
• Email Address: timothy.kordic@lausd.net
• Website Address: http://www.aidspreventionlausd.net/

Louisiana: Prevention for Parishes and Sexual Health Components to Grade Level Expectations

Team Louisiana has had a very successful past year and hopes to be even more successful this year. Through our collaboration with SIECUS, we have been successful in developing a one-day HIV Prevention for Parishes training to conduct with local education agencies (LEAs). The purpose of this training is to provide LEAs with basic knowledge on HIV and STD Prevention and assist them with developing policies and programs to address issues specific to their parishes.

A grade-level expectation (GLE) is a statement that defines what all students should know and be able to do at the end of a given grade level. GLEs add further definition to the content standards and benchmarks. Team Louisiana, through our program worked with the Department of Education’s Health Education GLE Committee to revise the GLE’s for Health Education for grades K-12. Team Louisiana was successful in developing GLEs to address Sexual Health for grades 7-12. The GLEs are in the process of being approved by our State Superintendent and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) for implementation by LEAs. We will offer trainings to Health, Physical Education, Science and other content area teachers on the Sexual Health component.

Team Louisiana has been extremely busy building capacity of LEAs and community based organizations to address HIV, STD and Teen Pregnancy Prevention.

• Contact Person: Raegan Carter Jones
• Email Address: Raegan.Jones@la.gov
• Website Address: http://www.louisianaschools.net/

Maryland: Annual Maryland HIV Youth Summit

The Annual Maryland HIV Youth Summit is coordinated and planned by Rebkha Atnafou, Director, of The After School Institute (TASI). The Maryland State Department of Education, along with other state and local agencies, partners with TASI to sponsor this statewide event annually in June. The Summit is free to all youth, peer leaders, parents, educators, community members, and youth service workers and provides a full day of program activities and workshops on HIV, STD, teen pregnancy prevention education, and healthy relationships.

The Summit is an opportunity to engage youth, parents/families, and those who work with youth to obtain health information, increase awareness about HIV/AIDS, and foster positive youth development. The Summit includes incentives for youth, exciting entertainment, exhibitors, and free on-site HIV testing. The Summit is scheduled for June 24, 2010.

• 
  
  Contact Person: Alicia Mezu
• Email Address: amezu@msde.state.md.us
• Website Address: http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/studentschoolsvcs/student_services_alt/HIV_AIDS_prevention/

Memphis: Latino/Hispanic Advisory Council

The initial organizational meeting of the Latino/Hispanic HIV/AIDS Advisory Council was held on August 26, 2008. Meetings were held monthly. The participation among the Hispanic/Latino population consisted of those serving the ESL population within the school district, the Health Department, community-based organizations servicing the population, including Latino Memphis, Latino faith-based organizations, as well as parents and students. There have been participants representing at least 10 different nationalities. An HIV/AIDS education session was conducted at one meeting on the curriculum, “Parenting for HIV Prevention” in Spanish, presented by the Hispanic cadre member. This was in preparation for an upcoming Latino parent education meeting.

A Needs Analysis was completed by meeting participants to develop a plan of action for delivering HIV prevention education to the Hispanic population. The needs were prioritized before beginning to develop the plan. By the end of FY 2008, the draft of plan of action for delivering HIV prevention education to Hispanic students and families was near completion.

Attendance at monthly meetings fluctuated with 17 being the highest number of participants. The meeting notice was distributed on a listserv that reaches a large Hispanic population which may have increased participation at that meeting; however attendance has generally been low. Scheduling a meeting time to get consistent attendance has been a challenge, although we have had a good cross-section of participants, including two Hispanic high school students who are consistent and very engaged.

• Contact Person Sudie S. Cushman
• Email Address: cushmans@mcsk12.net
• Website Address:: ww.mcsk12.net/csh

Minnesota: It's That Easy

Parents are the first and most important sexuality educators in their children’s lives but many are afraid they do not know the right answers or feel confused about the proper amount of information to offer and report needing help. Because of this need, a group of key health educators in Minnesota developed a “parents-as-sexuality-educators” curriculum called It’s That Easy. After an informal needs assessment of sexual health, parent education, teen pregnancy prevention and public health practitioners, an extensive literature review and an analysis of parent-child communication programs, the curriculum and training materials have been piloted and implemented statewide. The project involves communities at highest need which have the greatest health disparities in teen pregnancy, birth and STD rates: populations of color, American Indian, new immigrants and sexual minority youth.

The Minnesota HIV prevention education program collaborates with the key lead partner, the Minnesota Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Prevention and Parenting for programming, and the University of Minnesota Healthy Youth Development-Prevention Research Center for project evaluation, as well as a diverse group of health educators to advise on the It’s That Easy curriculum and training. Project activities include: 1) equipping a cadre of trainers with the skills to deliver the It’s That Easy curriculum training; 2) delivering the new curriculum It’s That Easy to 300 parent educators and teachers; 3) implementing a detailed evaluation plan to track, improve and report on the results of the program and 4) sharing the curriculum and training model with national audiences.

• Contact Person: Kathy Brothen
• Email Address: kathy.brothen@state.mn.us
• Website Address: http://www.mnschoolhealth.com/

New York: Building School Health Systems through Coordinating School Health

The Statewide CSHP chooses to identify two program accomplishments at this time;

Big-5 Coordinated School Health / Health Education Grant and the “Building School Health Systems” initiative.  The Big-5 CSH / Health Education Grant targets schools with populations at high risk for health disparity, providing opportunities that are directly aligned to school level impact measures and program outcomes. The “Building School

Health Systems” initiative is designed to provide deep and sustainable school health change and positive health and academic outcomes.

Big-5 Coordinated School Health / Health Education Grant:

In order to reach populations with the greatest risk for health disparities in HIV,obesity, poor nutrition, and tobacco use, the Statewide CSHP was able to promote the Big-5 Coordinated School Health / Health Education grant opportunity. This grant opportunity utilized CDC funds to target the five largest urban, high-needs school districts in New York State. School districts were given the opportunity to choose from a variety of funded options that were directly aligned to NYSED’s selected school level impact measures (SLIMS). For example, building on existing partnerships and infrastructure at the New York City Department of Education, this grant opportunity is enabling:

• Promotion of the new NYCDOE Wellness Policy city-wide;
• Implementation of HIV and pregnancy prevention programs to culturally diverse students;
• Training to improve comprehensive health education and services in high disparity areas;
• Training for NYC DOE staff in creating and managing online professional development courses;

This effort is a significant step toward meeting program outcomes because New York City alone contains over one-half of the student population of New York State has culturally diverse and underserved populations, and has shown disproportionate risk for obesity, diabetes, and vulnerability to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. This grant program demonstrates important partnerships with the CDC/DASH funded NYC DOE and other relevant stakeholders.

Building School Health Systems (Initiation of Systems-change initiative):

Purposeful collaboration with the American School Health Association, local education agencies (LEAs) and institutions of higher education (IHEs) in New York State has resulted in the development of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with an IHE to engage 3 LEAs in a long-term (4-5 year) systems-change initiative designed to improve district-level coordination of school health. Through creating and supporting functionally coordinated school health systems within school districts that are integrated with the primary missions and operations of schools, both health and academic aims will be met. (This is the main theory of action of this initiative). In-depth efforts with the three targeted districts over the course of 4-5 years will present evaluation evidence of the impact of school health systems on health and academic achievement. Additionally, short-term and intermediate outcomes of this initiative will provide ‘”lessons learned” that can be converted into statewide guidance for:

• Building school health systems;
• Delivering specialized technical assistance to build school health systems;
• Building partnerships between IHEs and LEAs to improve school health systems.

Contact Persons

• Owen Donovan, Martha Morrissey NYSED #518-486-6090
• Email Addresses: donovan@mail.nysed.gov and morriss@mail.nysed.gov
• Website Address: http://www.nysed.gov/

Rhode Island: Building Capacity for LGBTQ Youth

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and Youth Pride, Inc. (YPI) have had a long standing collaboration to reach at-risk sexual minority youth.

With funding from CDC/DASH, through RIDE, YPI re-constituted the Statewide Task Force on LGBTQ Youth in 2005 and is now an ongoing group of statewide educators, directors and advocates.

The Task Force updated and revised its 2006 recommendation in 2009 and developed an updated workplan. RIDE HIV/Sexuality Specialist also worked closely with YPI to identify key HIV prevention opportunities. With funding from the Rhode Island Department of Health, through RIDE, YPI implemented a strategic planning process that resulted in a 5 year plan. This plan addresses at risk sexual minority youth in the areas of HIV prevention, tobacco use and obesity.

The plan will guide YPI and help ensure an infrastructure and programs that will be sustainable through 2015.

• Contact Person: Anne Marie Silvia
• Email Address: annemarie.silvia@ride.ri.gov
• Website Address: http://www.thriveri.gov/

South Carolina: Safer Choices for South Carolina Youth

Recognizing the demand and need for training in this area South Carolina Healthy Schools (SCHS) researched proven, effective curriculum for reducing sexual risk behavior among teens. Upon reviewing several curriculum Safer Choices was selected to be use for sexual risk reduction trainings. Building on the existing partnership and collaboration the SCHS HIV Coordinator and program staff contracted with the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy to conduct regional capacity building training sessions for high school teachers to implement Safer Choices

Outcomes: The South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and SCHS HIV coordinator developed a Safer Choices training cadre comprised of fourteen individuals from the Department of Education Healthy Schools, the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, school district level staff, and members of community-based organizations. The cadre were trained and certified as Safer Choices “Trainer of Trainers” by ETR Associates, the publishers of “Safer Choices”.

The South Carolina Safer Choices training cadre trained over one hundred high school teachers in the Safer Choices curriculum.

• Contact Person: Aaron Bryan
• Email Address: AKBryan@ed.sc.gov
• Website Address: http://ed.sc.gov/

South Dakota: Board of Education Approves Model Tobacco Policy

The cornerstone of a comprehensive effort to discourage tobacco use is the adoption and consistent enforcement of policies for a completely tobacco-free school environment. According to the 2008 South Dakota School Health Profiles, only 35% of the secondary schools have a comprehensive policy that prohibits tobacco use by students, staff, and visitors in school building, at school functions, in school vehicles, on school grounds, and at off-site school events. In order to improve tobacco policy in our schools, Coordinated School Health partnered with the Department of Health Tobacco Control Program and the Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD) to develop a comprehensive tobacco policy for K-12 schools.

Coordinated School Health presented the policy to the South Dakota Board of Education (BOE) and requested their approval of the policy as a “model” policy for schools to follow. The BOE approved this request on January 5, 2010. CSH is working with ASBSD to provide training regarding policy development and implementation. The model policy is posted on the Departments of Education and Health web sites, along with resources available to support local implementation including a tobacco policy self assessment, signage, and educational materials. For more information, go to the SD Department of Education web site http://doe.sd.gov/

• Contact Person: Kari Senger
• Email Address: kari.senger@state.sd.us
• Website Address: http://doe.sd.gov/oess/schoolhealth/index.asp

Texas: Parent & Community Involvement: School Health Advisory Councils

Texas school districts offer an integrated school, parent, and community approach for enhancing the health and well-being of students. School health advisory councils, coalitions, and broadly based constituencies for school health build support for school health program efforts. Schools actively solicit parent involvement and engage community resources and services to respond more effectively to the health-related needs of students.

Originally created for community members to weigh in on sexuality education curricula, School Health Advisory Councils (SHACs), have expanded to include all areas of school health. As a result of more community involvement, during the 2009 80th Texas Legislature, two sexuality education bills were considered in a hearing, which has not occurred in over a decade. Thus, Texas Education Agency (TEA) declared the 2009-2010 school year as The Year of the SHAC. The agency offers a series of monthly training sessions on School Health Advisory Councils, often called SHACs, for school staff, parent involvement groups and community members. These trainings are conducted via teleconferencing with cities across the state. The TEA encourages SHAC members to look at data including the School Health Index, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and School Health Initiative Project, as well as local data examining teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. As a result of these TEA trainings, Team Texas! has had the privilege of witnessing school districts transform. School districts that did not have SHACs created them and those who had nonfunctioning SHACs reinvigorated their program and community. These communities are now able to be accurately represented on this Council and make school health recommendations to their local School Board of Trustees. This year, we recognized five outstanding school districts who’s SHACs went above and beyond the call of duty. These “success stories” are great tools for all school districts to utilize as they strive to improve their local SHACs.

• Contact Person Onnalita Sutton
• Email Address onnalita.sutton@tea.state.tx.us
• Website Address: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/

Wisconsin: Policy and Environmental Approaches to Support School Health

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and Department of Health Services (DHS) have worked together to improve the health status of Wisconsin children by initiating statewide changes to increase physical activity and health eating. Funding from the National Governor’s Association, Wisconsin Partnership Program, and CDC (ARRA) are being used to develop and implement statewide programs and policies to increase school-aged youth physical activity levels to meet the recommend daily average of 60 minutes.

Wisconsin middle schools can be trained in using FitnessGram, over 200 schools over 2 years. A state bill has been introduced this legislative session to mandate fitness testing among students in grades 3rd-12th and to ban sugar-sweetened beverages and candy in all school buildings (public and private). ARRA funding is being used by DPI to develop a statewide initiative to improve the physical activity levels among preK-12 students. The funding is being used to provide grants to school to improve their PA practices and to partner with community programs and/or local coalitions. A kit and professional development is being developed to assist schools and communities to design and implement effective PA strategies (e.g., active recess, safe routes to school). In addition to the PA activities above, a Farm to School bill has been introduced in this legislative session and the state health plan for 2020, Healthiest Wisconsin 2020, has include school health as one of its overarching goals.

• Contact Person: Brian Weaver
• Email Address: brian.weaver@dpi.wi.gov
• Website Address: http://dpi.wi.gov/sspw/index.html

Black Youth Rising: Hope for Change

“I want to go to college,” said high-school aged Michael to Dr. Shawn Ginwright, Professor at San Francisco State University and the author of Black Youth Rising. Dr. Ginwright looked at him in surprise. “Say what?” He quickly sprung into action and organized a youth-filled bus trip to San Diego State University through his alumni connections. He had not heard from Michael in two weeks and was stunned when a student told him that Michael had been shot two weeks earlier. “It took the wind out of my sails,” said Dr. Ginwright. It hit me from the blind side.” He referenced slain rapper Biggie Smalls song, Things Done Changed and continued expressing his dismay. “Gone was the romantic notion of my urban youth and running after the ice cream truck. Now in Chocolate City, things done changed. Kids were killing each other, and no one was doing anything about it.”

His morning keynote presentation, “Addressing root causes of health disparities: promoting positive health and academic achievement among youth” opened up the dialogue of inequality as being systemic and structural. He said the process of building the capacity of individuals, institutions and communities to promote and sustain environmental health could be addressed through the four C’s of radical healing: caring relationships, consciousness, community and culture. He cites a community project where youth helped to clean up a park, the result was a sense of hope that was off the charts, “through their contribution to the community now they have renewed optimism for the future.”

Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D.: Day One ~ Opening Keynote

Shawn Ginwright shares his insights in response to our questions.

· Something I do to “strengthen my practice” is read, reflect, and spend time with young people.
· A person that has inspired me is Nelson Mandela
· A book, movie or experience I would recommend is “A Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin; the  movie: “Shawshank Redemption”; and experience: sailing.

Dr. Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D., San Francisco State University, Cesar Chavez Institute for Public Policy,  will be delivering the keynote address on Day One: "Addressing Root Causes of Health Disparities: Promoting Positive Health & Academic Achievement among Youth", as well as presenting the Day One Breakout Session: "Cultural Competency Related to Urban Youth"

Engaging Youth: Involving Young People In Our Work

“How do we build skills in young people?" Laurie Jo Wallace, presenter of “Youth Engagement: Involving Young People In Our Work” asked the afternoon group. Team Los Angeles said they engaged youth in working on a theatre program for HIV including college students as mentors. Another partner said their project included the creation of a PSA for HIV prevention, without a script.

“Understanding and engaging youth at all levels is a practical strategy to connect with them,” said Laurie Jo. She defined youth as ages 10-20. She offered some suggestions to learn more about youth culture, “Ask questions, understand social media like Facebook and texting and keep an open mind.”

The strategies for youth empowerment include involving youth in planning, implementing and evaluating. The key to building relationships with youth are: provide structures for one-to-one interaction; offer food; allow time for team building; make time to get to know them and really listen; forgive mistakes; and have fun and laugh.