Della has been teaching secondary and adult education for over 20 years. She holds a BS in Sociology, MEd in Reading, and is ABD on the MComm in Storytelling.
Advocating effectively for health education programs can be done with a multifaceted approach to increase involvement and participation among students to maximize the impact of efforts. Health education can occur across the curriculum and in extracurricular activities.
Advocating for the implementation of such programming can be initiated and directed by students, teachers or community members. Sometimes specific community dynamics might create a need for emphasis on a particular element of health education.
Identifying opportunities for implementing health education advocacy programs can be as simple as recognizing a teachable moment and seizing it.
All the major curriculum subjects connect in some way to health education and teachers can help make these connections by emphasizing where their content is related to health. Teachers can be creative in making these connections to reinforce a school culture that values health education.
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Many extracurricular activities are opportunities to engage students in advocating for health education. Most activities outside school are directly fitness related like sports, marching band and dance. Even those that don't have direct connections to a health topic can be integrated to include increased advocacy in health education.
Fundraising activities for clubs could ask for sponsorship from local health care providers. Private practice medical professionals often appreciate buying advertising from students to support their activities. Encouraging participation of groups in relevant community health causes can also integrate extracurricular activities into health education advocacy programs.
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For example, the chess club could volunteer to play at the retirement home to better understanding aging. Service clubs, fraternities and sororities can create partnerships with local domestic violence shelters to gain awareness about healthy relationships and gather donations.
Health education advocacy programs require a diverse approach to increase efficacy. In addition to taking advantage of teacher-directed opportunities for health education discussed above, students can develop their own advocacy programs. Students who have a vested interest in a cause may want to take the initiative to create a student-led movement within the school.
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For example, Students Against Drunk Drivers (SADD) and AlaTeen are types of health education advocacy programs that address alcoholism as a health issue that might benefit students. Other programs to help with peer pressure toward cigarette and drug addiction may also be important health topics that would benefit from student leadership.
Occasionally a community faces a crisis that warrants an intervention by a health education advocacy program to address that crisis. One example of this kind of needs-based health advocacy is in Flint, Michigan with the water pollution issue that forces attention to the critical need for clean drinking water and the impact of poverty on health.
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Another example that is increasingly becoming a community need is regarding mental health. Tragedies like school shootings, natural disasters and violent crimes frequently require addressing mental health on a mass scale.
Often when these crises affect a school, community specialists in grieving and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will assist a school with this kind of health education. PTSD is a mental health diagnosis that is common in people who have been exposed to a trauma of some kind and have developed an exaggerated danger response in the brain as a result.
In this lesson, we learned some ways to implement health education advocacy programs through teacher and student-directed efforts to address a broad array of health education related needs. We discussed ways teachers can integrate health education across curriculum content in many topics. We talked about connecting extracurricular activities to health education issues beyond fitness to include nutrition, healthy relationships, addiction, aging and mental health. Student-led movements are especially important when the health care topic is one that may require students to have a vested interest, like those vulnerable to peer pressure. We covered health advocacy needs that may be unique to a specific community or incident and discussed PTSD as the brain's way of processing danger.
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GACE Health Education (613): Practice & Study Guide19 chapters | 180 lessons | 16 flashcard sets
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