 Focusing
on Healthy Youth
As part
of Health People's 15th year of service to the South Bronx, we are
proud to announce our 2005 YOOTS Institute. This multi-faceted educational
and outreach program is built on our uniquely successfully HIV Jr.
Peer and Mentoring Program, which, as evaluation done under funding
from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
confirms, helps kids in HIV-affected families go forward and build
their lives. Equally important, we can't help but have noticed the
wonderful leadership qualities kids bring forth when they are given
some support to start confronting their community's most difficult
problems. So now, we want to train area youth to serve as leaders
in the struggle to achieve better health for our community. In areas
like the South Bronx, which are overwhelmed by chronic disease,
youth bring new hope, energy and determination to the fight for
better health.
This summer, up to 30 South Bronx area youth will
participate in a six-week, intensive summer program that will train
them to serve as qualified peer health educators. Through the YOOTS
Institute, talented neighborhood youth will receive comprehensive
education on chronic disease using physician-reviewed curriculum.
The Institute will also include diverse cultural and recreational
activities, field trips to other youth and health organizations
and a public awards ceremony.
Once successfully trained, youth leaders will serve
as part of youth teams or alongside our adult educators during targeted
year-long outreach activities. Working through churches, schools,
housing projects, and community centers with local youth and families,
our youth peer educators will facilitate important educational sessions
that can successfully motivate lifestyle changes in youth to help
prevent and/or contain the spread and impact of chronic diseases—HIV,
asthma, diabetes, and more—that continue to devastate young
people and families in our South Bronx neighborhoods.
Program
Outline
Once successfully trained, youth leaders will serve
as part of youth teams or alongside our adult educators during targeted
year-long outreach activities. Working through churches, schools,
housing projects, and community centers with local youth and families,
our youth peer educators will facilitate important educational sessions
that can successfully motivate lifestyle changes in youth to help
prevent and/or contain the spread and impact of chronic diseases—HIV,
asthma, diabetes, and more—that continue to devastate young
people and families in our South Bronx neighborhoods.
Our six-week intensive YOOTS Institute combines a
variety of activities designed to enrich the lives of participating
youth as it trains and reinforces leadership that can have an important
influence on the motivation and behavior of other youth.
- Youth will participate in 3 hours per day of targeted education/training
based upon physician-reviewed Health People curriculum modules
on diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, and other chronic diseases that
impact South Bronx and other poor neighborhoods. We will also
offer training focused on smoking cessation, nutrition, obesity
prevention and 'wellness.'
- Youth will participate in instruction and discussions focused
on the most effective ways for kids to talk with other kids (and
their families) about chronic disease prevention, coping with
chronic disease in their families, motivating and sustaining healthy
behavior change, and more.
- Youth will take field trips to other youth programs where our
peer educators can discuss what they do in the community and where
partnerships can be developed with other health-related youth
programs citywide around initiatives such as our own 'KIDZ Commission
on AIDS.'
- Alongside adult mentors, youth will conduct site visits to some
of the settings where they will undertake outreach and education
during the ‘school year’—churches, community
centers, housing projects, and schools—and gain experience
in making effective public presentations on health-related issues
to potentially hundreds of South Bronx young people.
- Youth will participate in a variety of cultural and recreational
activities that seek to take advantage of the unique bio and cultural
diversity of the Bronx and New York City.
- Youth will be offered computer and other job training opportunities,
as appropriate.
- Youth who graduate successfully from the summer program into
year-long peer education activities will be feted at an end-of-institute
awards ceremony.
Once youth educators are properly trained and successfully
graduated, Health People staff will arrange for school-year outreach
opportunities on an ongoing basis in the places where young people
are likely to congregate, including youth centers and churches.
The most accomplished of our graduates will become eligible to work
alongside our adult peer educators in some exciting and health-impacting
programs that we continue to develop with hospitals and other health
partners in the Bronx, including home-based asthma case management
through our Childhood Asthma Initiative.
Outcomes
In addition to the benefits to the health of our community,
there are also important educational and community building outcomes
from our Institute. Through peer training and education, job training,
cultural and recreational activities with peers, and the support
provided by Health People staff and mentors, young people are reminded
that our community needs them—their talents and skills, their
energy and enthusiasm—that it makes a difference to us that
they succeed. We have had no HIV infections and virtually no school
drop-outs to report among youth who have taken part in our current
programs. Indeed, youth in our programs repeatedly report a positive
outlook on their future, a testimony to the connections we provide
and the leadership we help develop and support.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SUMMER INSTITUTE, PLEASE
CONTACT Michelle Joseph.
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