Training and engaging youth advocates – 3/19/12

Q: A state is interested in learning of programs/strategies/resources used by other communities that has successfully trained/mobilized youth to educate/advocate for policy change around tobacco control issues. If you have any of the following, please share examples of:

  • Resources, materials, and strategies that have been used for training and mobilizing youth advocates to educate/advocate for policy change around tobacco control issues
  • RFPs to hire a consultant to train/mobilize youth for advocacy around tobacco control issues

A:

  1. Alabama: In Alabama we use the Youth Empowerment Program that was developed by the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Alabama Department of Public Health using funds from a CDC grant. The goals of the 8 Session Program are to "stimulate interest and empower young people to be anti-tobacco advocates" and to "reduce youth tobacco use and exposure" to secondhand smoke. As part of our youth mini-grant program, grantees are required to identify a group of high school students to train using this curriculum. Click here to view the YEP manual.
     
  2. Alaska: Copies of the last two RFPs Alaska used for their Youth Tobacco Control efforts are available from the TCN staff upon email request.
     
  3. Missouri 1: The University of Missouri manages the Smokebusters program in Missouri. Over the years since it started in 1999, the policy advocacy focus has grown.
     
    We also were able to implement a middle school age program called YEA TEAM (Youth Empowerment in Action, Tobacco Education, Advocacy& Media) several years ago. It also had good materials & young people were becoming great advocates for policy.
     
  4. Missouri 2: Here are two programs here in Missouri that have been very successful:
     
    1.Smokebusters: This is a three year continuum program based off of CDC’s Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control, 1999 edition. The program empowers students to become critical thinkers, to avoid tobacco use, and to advocate for tobacco free environments through policy change. The three year phase trains the same basic group of youth, with each year building off of the previous years. The objective for Phase I is to teach students to serve as advocates for change in their community. Strategies include: recognizing the characteristics of youth and adult audiences, recognizing the negative effects of tobacco on the human body, developing skills to counter tobacco advertising, and develop goal setting and action planning skills for a tobacco free environment. The Phase II Objective is to empower students to become stronger advocates for policy control and or environmental policy change through workshop on advocacy through media sources and through governmental relations training. Strategies include: learning to use print, radio and television resources for advocacy projects, develop relationships with local and state government officials, and collaborate with school, city, businesses, and other organizational officials to work toward tobacco control and or environmental policy change. The objective for the third and final phase is to empower youth advocates to seek tobacco control and or environmental policy change. Strategies include: learning how the tobacco industry blocks attempts to strengthen local tobacco control policies, learning the truth about tobacco advertising and how to use that truth to educate , developing the skills necessary to approach decisions makers to ask for tobacco control policy changes, and prepare students to rebuild teams for the next three year cycle. We have been very successful with this program, training over 6,125 youth and mentors and assisting in 152 policy changes. In addition, we have been able to tweak the program and condense the three years into two that we can share if needed. Smokebusters resources are available on a password-protected website. The password is available from the TCN staff upon email request.
     
    2.SWAG (Students with a Goal): SWAG’s mission is to promote healthy lifestyles by advocating for a tobacco-free Missouri, educating youth about the risks of tobacco use, and empowering future generations to be tobacco-free. Based on the CDC’s Best Practices User Guide: Youth Engagement – State and Community Inventions, SWAG focuses on developing leadership skills so youth can actively participate in community policy change activities that lead to reduction in smoking and secondhand smoke exposure. Each session was designed by youth, with coaching from adults with expertise in tobacco issues. SWAG resources can be viewed here.
     
    With just the first year of implementation, we have trained over 354 students and mentors, and 95% participated in one or more advocacy event this past year. Both programs have pre and post knowledge and attitude surveys, post day evaluation, action plans and required follow up once the trainings are completed and students go back into their communities.
     
  5. North Carolina: YES! is a nonprofit organization that empowers youth, in partnership with adults, to create community change.The three attachments are examples of youth empowerment strategies and resources that we’ve used.The resources include a summary of the Youth and Adult trainings that YES! offers to build infrastructure and capacity for youth empowerment, a Report, including methods and outcomes, from a statewide tobacco summit that YES! held in Georgia (Healthy Schools Leadership Summit 2011), and a Youth Empowerment Checklist useful for assessing your organization’s current capacity for partnering with youth. Meet YES! on video here.
     
    All health advocacy work at YES! is centered around our Youth Empowerment Model. The three-pronged model (skill development, critical awareness, and opportunities) is designed to fully engage young people in issues important to them, so that they have the skills they need to make a difference.By being engaged in every step of the tobacco prevention, youth become the authentic leaders of the movement.
     
    Some examples of YES! mobilizing and empowering youth to take part in changing communities include:
     
    • 100% Tobacco Free Schools
    • Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars
    • Smoke-Free Parks
    • Tobacco-Free Places of Worship
    • Continued funding for tobacco prevention efforts
       
    If you’d like to learn more or find additional resources, check out our website.
     
  6. Utah: All youth advocacy coalitions should follow the CDC's Best Practices User Guide for Youth Engagement. This is a great start.
     
    Another major resource to use is Coordinator Camp, run by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and American Legacy Foundation. This is a forum for open discussion, sharing of sample materials and resources, seeking assistance, notifications, and national partnerships. This website also comes with monthly conference calls. Each month we go over national updates, trends, and announcement.We conclude the call receiving updates from each state. These calls are perfect to ask direct questions for immediate response.Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids also sponsors a training for adult coordinators every other year.
     
    Along with this resource, working with your Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Regional Advocacy Director is very helpful.
     
  7. Virginia: Here is some general info about Y Street, the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth’s teen volunteer group, as well as some sample surveys our youth used to support some of their campaigns:
      We actually have so much info that could be shared, we feel like it would be more efficient to speak with those interested states/peers directly, and then work with them to provide materials based on their specific needs. Contact: Danny Saggese, Director of Marketing, Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.
     
  8. West Virginia: Please refer to this entry in the TCN’s Help Your Peers archive for basic information about West Virginia’s Raze youth prevention campaign. For further information, see the attached fact sheet or contact the tobacco control staff in West Virginia.

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Other Responses

    CDC Office on Smoking and Health, Health Communications Branch: CDC's Best Practices User Guide: Youth Engagement—State and Community Interventions focuses on the role youth play in advancing policy as part of a comprehensive tobacco control program. The youth perspective and voice is important, because the initiation of tobacco use most often occurs before age 18. In addition, the tobacco industry spends millions of dollars every day targeting youth to develop its next generation of smokers. Youth have the passion and creativity to fight back and to protect themselves from this formidable opponent.
     
    This guide will provide tobacco control program managers with information on the best practices for engaging youth as a part of a comprehensive program. Youth involvement can lead to important policy and social norm changes, and advance the fight against pro-tobacco influences.

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