Reflection 1

Adolescence has only been recognized as its own stage of development recently. However, very few people actually understand what this stage really is, and I hope to learn how I can improve what people know about adolescents. In general, people know what to expect of children, and was it expected of them as adults. Adolescent, on the other hand, are always told that “they are no longer children” but at the same time they aren’t adults either. I hope that I will learn how to help people understand the best ways of helping define what it means to be an adolescent and what is expected of these individuals, so that they can benefit as much as possible in this transition period. Being in the Maternal & Child Health track has exposed me to many areas of child and adolescent health, and this course should help me promote what I learned in those courses. I am interested in working with youth who experience psychological problems such as anxiety or depression, and have previously worked with children in a hospital setting. Having a sister who is currently 14 also helps in giving me an idea of how adolescents act, which is very different than how my “generation” acted at that age, and I am only 23. Being able to learn how to communicate with this group will help greatly in promoting healthy practices which will benefit their lives in the future.

Vishal Gupta

Reflection 1

What interests me most about adolescent health promotion is the opportunity to be a source of encouragement and support for adolescents. To be able to help show adolescents the wide array of opportunities that are available to them. Through mentoring high school students and coaching young people as a swim coach, I began to realize that I truly enjoyed the connection I had with many of them. I wasn't just their coach or mentor, but it gave me the opportunity to sit and talk with them-getting them to open up and share their experiences and the things they know and go through. Health promotion for me is more than just teaching adolescents about safe sex, healthy eating, staying in school and being physically active-it's about helping them to become empowered to be the change they want to see in themselves, so that they too can be examples and leaders of change. It is about working towards not just having a healthy body, but the total package-mind, body and soul. This course will help me in the long run by helping me not just only to better understand the issues that are important to adolescents, but also figuring out different approaches that can be used, and how to tailor interventions and programs to fit those needs.I am excited and nervous at the same time to actually work in the area of health promotion with adolescents, it has been something I have wanted to do for a very long time. I've read many articles, had many class discussions in which we have brainstormed and come up with many different kinds of ideas that could work. But now I will actually get the chance to get to try and apply the techniques I have learned about and I can't wait.

T.Gray

Personal Reflection 1

Adolescent Health Promotion interests me because it puts practical application to what I have been learning in my other classes within the Maternal Child Health program. Adolescents are a unique community, no longer children and not yet adults, and they have special health needs. My hope is that this course will allow me firsthand to capture this population in a health promotion intervention. I am hoping to get practice communicating with and directing young people. This course will contribute to my career by giving me an opportunity for mentored practice in addressing adolescence. This course will also ensure that I introduce myself into at least one current program that specifically targets adolescents building networks for future career. I can admit that I have not personally or professionally had to deal with adolescents since I was in fact an adolescent, and in some ways that intimidates me. The good news is however that being 24 years old I am not removed from this population by too many years. I feel that my age and own unique personal experiences will allow me to excel in adolescent health promotion because these teens will be able to relate with me. As an athlete, a women, a minority, and someone who has experienced firsthand the implications of adolescent alcohol and drug use, sexual activity, and violence, I feel like I can be a strong and credible motivating force for these young people.

- Andrea

reflection 1

Though a health policy student, I enjoy taking classes in other disciplines to gain a better understanding about how all of the functions within public health work together. Promotion specifically interests me because I enjoy studying about what motivates people to make changes in their lives. It’s a key aspect of any effort to effect positive change in an area of public health. It’s my impression that adolescent health is relatively underdeveloped from an outreach, research and funding perspective yet adolescence is a key time in ones life where new positive and negative behaviors are adopted and where there is real opportunity for impact. Promotion of health behaviors with teens is so interesting because they hear messages from various sources (peers, parents, teacher, popular media) and their trust of those sources differs as well.

Any career in public health requires the ability to communicate with individuals and population groups. I would also like to improve my understanding of the promotion and education development processes so that I can participate in promotion activities throughout my career. I hope to work with adolescents in some capacity throughout my public health career. This summer I am beginning a job with the Center for Health and Health Care in schools, and I believe this class will assist me in this job as well.

Let's face it. I'm pretty out of touch with teenagers - no facebook page, never been to my space. Feeling old. So I need to learn how to connect with adolescents by listening to them. While there isn’t much that I think I know about what motivates and interests teens these days, I have some marketing skills that might come in handy. I spent several years working in the marketing department of a company where we researched in focus groups and through data analysis our target group and what motivated them in order to develop appropriate messaging to them. Clearly our target in this class will be different but maybe some of the fundamentals of market research won’t be too different. I also don’t typically fear speaking in front of groups or facilitating focus groups though 15 year olds are a little scary to me.

reflection 1

What interests you about adolescent health promotion?
The benefits that are possible from working in health promotion are huge. You can prevent major disease complications and problems before they begin to affect a persons social, mental, physical and economic well being. But by targeting adolescents specifically, you are choosing the stage in life where major behavioral health habits and beliefs are forming and influenced, and this affect the most important part of the life cycle, which will have repercussions throughout the persons entire life. I am mostly interested in family planning and sexual health/rights and I feel that adolescence is the prime time to intervene.
What do you expect to gain from this course?
I hope to learn more about the opportunities that exist to tailor health promotion schemes to adolescents and how to best approach different topics to them.
How do you think this course will contribute to your career?
I hope to work in adolescent health when I graduate, and as a nurse I want to learn a more teaching/ health promotion aspect as opposed to my clinical background.
What skills/abilities to you bring to adolescent health promotion?
I have a bachelor of science in nursing, and have been an emergency dept nurse at GW for three years. We see the gamut of the DC population, including adolescents with complex problems. But I need the behavioral intervention piece. I only get to do five minute discharge teaching with them, I need practice planning longer programs to educate about the different health problems/behaviors that affect health.
Kate Dieringer

Katherine's initial reflections

Here are my initial thoughts for the first week of class...

I'm principally interested in adolescent health because I find adolescents a completely fascinating group.  They are as emotionally and intellectually complex as adults, but sometimes have the hardy resilience of a young child or the sensitive fragility of someone much older.  I think health promotion per se is interesting in this population because so much of what we do with adolescents generally deals more proscriptively and in terms of what you should NOT be doing and how you should NOT act.  Teenagers need more messages in their lives -- positive, health messages, not necessarily any messages -- that are about what you CAN do and what is GOOD to do.  

My focus in school is in policy, and I want to focus on health education.  I'm hoping to get a good foundation in solid on-the-ground strategies that can be used effectively in adolescent populations.  I have my own experience with adolescents, but I want to learn more about generalizable practices that can eventually be extrapolated out to the policy level.  That way, down the line I'll have a much better sense of what approaches work in these groups, and I can use that in whatever work I'm doing to advance effective policy.

My own experience teaching adolescents helps in looking at these strategies.  I've been in a classroom and I keep in touch with my students, so I have a few helpful people I can bounce ideas off of.  I also think that coming from the policy perspective -- a pretty wide-angle approach to public health -- helps when considering how community and sociopolitical risk and protective factors affect our kids.  Public health strategies -- especially in areas like sexual health and other important adolescent health issues -- need to examine every level of behavioral experience, from the individual on up.  So it's important to have people in your group that can contribute from each of a number of perspectives.

-- Katherine Rogers

Welcome Summer 2008 GWU Adolescent Health Strategies & Techniques Class

Welcome to our Summer 2008 GWU School of Public Health Adolescent Health ~ Strategies & Techniques Class Blog.

Both Prof. Sara Marques and Prof. Alis Marachelian have created this space for you to track your personal reflections, anecdotes, and 'lessons learned' in this 6 week summer 2008 class.

We hope you enjoy this journey towards understanding a bit more that special stage in life called 'adolescence' -now as the adults that you are- as well as to develop and apply your skills as Health Professionals in teaching "health" to youth with the interactive, youth-focused strategies and techniques learned in and outside the classroom.

We will make this blog 'public' in order for you to spread the wisdom gained through your unique experiences, ideas developed, and challenges you've overcome. Please write knowing that the whole world would read you.

" A candle will never lose its light by lighting another candle"

And so it begins....