Reminder!

Next HASHPPAC meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 4th 10:30 AM-12 Noon @ The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke

Education Subcommittee Meeting Minutes 10-18-12

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 8^th 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 7^th and 8^th 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 6^th 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.

Accountability Committee

The Holyoke Adolescent Sexual Health and Pregnancy Prevention task force formally transitioned into an accountability committe in January 2012. The transition was approved by all members. The committee will ensure that the HASHPP final recommendations are implemented.

July 2011 Update

The Task Force will be restructuring for the upcoming year and will be moving forward with implementing our findings and recommendations. We will meet in September to formulate our next steps and to develop a clear plan of action to accomplish our mission. We have convened for one year and would like to end our year with progress and a clearly laid out plan for lowering the teen birth rates in Holyoke.

October 18th meeting update

The Task Force met on Monday October 18th to give updates on the committees' progress, grant information, and the task force structure. We had a large turnout which included some new members. We are proud to show our strong commitment to our mission and to the Holyoke community. For the meeting minutes click on the October 18th meeting minutes tab on the top of this page.

Youth First Grant Press

Holyoke and Springfield will be the two cities in Western Massachusetts that are included in the Youth First Grant award. The Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy and the YEAH Network will be focusing on this capacity building grant to decrease teen pregnancy by 10% over the next 5 years. Many organizations and agencies have partnered with the Alliance and YEAH to accomplish this goal. Visit the links below to see news coverage for more information.

http://www.cbs3springfield.com/news/local/Teen-Pregnancy-Prevention--104811329.html

http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-29/1286956361149210.xml&coll=1

Next meeting

The task force will resume it's meetings on Monday, October 18th at 11 am. We will be discussing the summer's progress in areas of Eduction, Access and Community Engagement. The meeting minutes will be posted on this blog. If you are interested in joining a committee, please contact Elaan at egreenfield@yeahnetwork.org.