Our Mission:
Peer Health Exchange’s mission is to give teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions. We do this by training college students to teach a comprehensive health curriculum in public high schools that lack health education. The Need:
Peer Health Exchange was founded to address a growing crisis: teenagers today are engaging in risky behavior at alarming rates, h
arming their bodies and their futures. One in six teens is overweight or obese. Three in ten sexually active teen girls become pregnant every year, increasing by 70% the chance that they will drop out of school, give birth to an unhealthy child, and live in poverty. PHE partners with public high schools that lack health education and where the majority of students live at or below the poverty line. These students experience a disproportionate number of health risks.
2. PHE recruits, selects and trains college students to teach a comprehensive health curriculum in these schools, consisting of twelve standardized health workshops ranging from sexual health and decision- making to substance abuse and nutrition.
3. PHE gives teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions. In the classroom, high school students articulate their values and goals, learn basic, accurate health information, explore attitudes and perceptions of peer norms and peer pressure, analyze the influence of culture and media on health, discuss barriers to healthy behaviors and strategies to overcome them, and identify and learn how to use the health resources in their communities.
4. PHE fosters a commitment to public service in college students. Impact:
In the 2011-2012 school year PHE will train nearly 1,700 college student volunteers to over 1700 9th graders in NYC, Boston, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Our evaluation work to date has shown that our program is effective in demonstrable ways. Nearly 90% of PHE high school students said they would use something they learned from PHE workshops to make a healthy decision in the future, and 74% said they had already used something they learned to make a healthy decision during the six months in which the program ran. PHE high school students also made statistically significant increases in their health knowledge, with a 16% improvement from Pre-Test to Post-Test. PHE is looking for students who:
• Are dedicated to giving teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions, have excellent teaching skills, and are willing to develop their leadership skills
• Will commit 4-6 hours a week for the entire 2010-2011 academic year to become health topic experts and workshop teachers
PHE volunteers will:
• Provide a much-needed service to public high school students who are not receiving health education
• Receive recommendations and references
• Develop strong teaching skills
• Develop valuable interview and job skills
• Learn valuable health information
• Learn about career opportunities
• Be an integral part of the campus community and develop friendships with a diverse group of fellow students
Questions? Contact [email protected]
Apply online at www.peerhealthexchange.org/apply
Applications due Friday, May 11th at 5pm
