Holyoke Adolescent Sexual Health and Pregnancy
Prevention task Force
Education
Sub-committee Minutes
October
18, 2012
Members: Patricia
Alford, Megan Grant, Nancy Gilbert, Brenda Reyes, Yadira Rodriguez,
Anabel Ruggeri, Helen Gibson
Uguccione
Excused: Angela Morrell
I.
Reviewed
meeting summary of Sept 4 meeting
II.
Up-dated committee members contact list (attached)
III.
Old-Business, Review progress of educational offerings
a.
Parent Workshops – “Let’s Be Honest”
Holyoke Public School’s Prep Grant (funded by DESE). There will be four parent workshops, using
the “Let’s be Honest” curriculum, for parents of 8th graders this
fall at:
- Center for
Excellence (October 24)
- E.N. White
School (October 25)
- McMahon
(November 13)
- Sullivan
(November 15)
(Workshops
will be offered to parents at the other four K-8 schools in the spring).
The workshops will be introduced by the school health
teacher and conducted by Brenda Reyes.
Helen has mailed an invitation letter and a copy of “Tips to Make It
Easier to Talk with Your Child about Sexuality” to all parents in both English
and Spanish. If the majority of parents
who attend the workshops speak only Spanish, the program will be conducted in
Spanish with the non-Spanish speaking parents encourage to attend another
workshop. Dinner will be provided and
each family will receive a $25.00 gift card from Barnes & Noble and a free
book and resource packet. Patty will be
the site coordinator at each meeting.
Helen needs assistance with out-reach to increase parent
attendance and site co-ordination on November 13.
Action:
-
Yadira will
assist with parent recruitment, especially for the workshop at CFE. She will make phone calls and reminder calls
-
Anabel will give
River Valley counselors the information about the parent workshops to increase
outreach.
-
Nancy will assist
Patty with the site coordination at The McMahon School on November 13
b.
Additional educational changes at the Holyoke Public
Schools
-
“Making Proud
Choices” curriculum has been implemented in the middle school
-
There are monthly
meetings for school nurses and health teachers to discuss reproductive health
education and related issues
-
Mike Hines has
been hired to produce an informational video about the impact of teen pregnancy
on student’s lives.
c.
River Valley’s Teen Outreach Grant (funded by DPH)
The Prep Program is using “Making
Proud Choices” to educate adolescent males in Holyoke. Twelve boys have graduated from 2 sessions
and have provided positive feed-back about the program. (Participants need to
complete 80% of the modules to graduate.) Both sessions were held in conjunction with
the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club with Yadira assisting in recruitment and
education. The goal is to have 100
adolescent boys complete the program by June 30, 2013. For the next group, recruitment will focus on
students at Dean Technical High School.
Action: Helen will support the program at Dean and
assist Yadira and Anabel in making appropriate connections with faculty and
staff.
d.
Holyoke Public School’s TOP program (funded by Youth
First)
TOP programs are at both
Dean Tech and Holyoke High. The schools’
health teachers (Pat Winans, Holyoke High, and Cynthia Carbona, Dean Tech) will
facilitate the programs. Recruitment has
been slow due to conflicts with after-school activities and sports programs. It is hoped that the number of student
participants will expand as the initial group begins recruiting others.
Note: The Holyoke Boys and Girls Club offers a TOP program
at the Center for Excellence which has 17 participants. The program there is part of an existing
after-school program. YEAH also offers a
TOP program at the Salvation Army.
IV.
New Business
a.
Education Development Center (EDC) Study
The study, Salud y Exito
(Health and Success), began last year. Sixth
grade students (n=317) completed a survey (attached) in the fall of 2011. Families were mailed either a packet
containing an educational CD on assisting children to make healthy choices or a
nutrition booklet. (Helen provided
committee mebers with copies of the CDs.)
Students will be re-surveyed in 7th and 8th
grade. Families who received the
nutrition booklet will be offered the educational CD at the end of the
study. Results of the survey show that:
-
very few students
got drunk, smoked cigarettes, or used marijuana in the past year, and they found
it hard to access either alcohol or marijuana
-
most (85%) of
students found the school climate safe with adults who care about them
-
a majority (98%) of
students want to finish high school and 93% want to go to college
-
over half (60%) of
the students access health information from their parents while only 10% access
this information from teachers or someone at school.
Action: The report’s data provides a positive image
of the 6th students in Holyoke Public Schools. Nancy will explore getting an article
published in The Republican about
this data.
b.
Prevention Needs Assessment (PNA) Survey
The results of this survey
will be discussed at our next sub-committee meeting
c.
Our discussion of educational offerings reveals that:
-
There has been
use of “Making Proud Choices” and “Let’s be Honest” curriculums by several
community organizations in Holyoke
-
There is a need
to develop a consistent message throughout Holyoke. “You have choices” was suggested. This will need to be discussed at the entire
HASH-PP meeting in December. Members of
the education sub-committee discussed the need to involve individuals in
actions, such as wearing t-shirts, wrist bands with the consistent message
during the entire year, not just at the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Awareness Day
in May
-
There is a need
to increase communication and collaboration between the HASH-PP
sub-committees.
-
We need to
celebrate the increased collaboration and cooperation among multisectoral
groups in Holyoke.
Action: Nancy will
contact Katie Liptak, Chair of HASH-PP, to discuss these items.
Next
Meeting: December 4 (Full HASH-PP) -- We will schedule our next
sub-committee meeting at that time.