Youth Boards 2004

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Youth Boards 2004 Half-year Report

 

Background

In 2003 Health Action got funding from Community Organisations Grants Scheme (COGS) to employ a dedicated Youth Boards coordinator.

 

2004 training

Training was held in March, (see report below.)  For 2004 each group works on one big theme display and these will rotate around each school.  Peer Support Workers from The Hub are making a display as well.

 

Topics for displays are as follows:

Motueka High School - Bullying

Nelson College For Girls - Body Image

Nayland College - Sexual Health

Nelson College - Mental Health

The Hub - Youth Rights

 

These displays spend about a month of term time at each school.

 

Each school was also asked to do a mini display on some of the groups and services at their school,  to be up until their theme displays are finished.

 

Updates from different schools

Nelson College for Girls √ had a good size group together of older and younger students to help share the workload.  They planned to have some photo's developed by their photography department for their Groups and Services display,  as well as a question box on the Youth Board to be staffed by the HAGS (Health Action Group) who would regularly clear the box and put answers on the Youth Board.

Motueka High school  √  had some great ideas for both their Groups and Services display as well as their theme display on bullying.  Their teacher contact is really involved in their group.

 

Nayland College √ decided not to try to move their youth board this year but instead to try and publicize the board more in its current location.

 

Nelson College √ were also trying to move their Youth Board.  Their displays on mental health and the Groups and Services offered in their school were still in the planning stages. 

 

Waimea College √ is working independently under the guidance of the HoD Health teacher.   They have requested copies of any posters or new information, which would be of interest to display on the board, eg Youth Week, and these will be forwarded as Health Action receives them.

 

The Hub √ The Hub are doing a theme display on Youth rights, also planning a display about The Hub.  They had some great ideas to make some areas of their display interactive, such as including a quiz for people to do after they had read their display.   

 

Plans

 

 

·         Groups and Services displays on the Youth Boards until the first rotating displays on 17 May.  

 

·         We believe future groups will benefit from the younger students who will still be at school next year to help train the new groups.

 

·         Annual training and planning interschool workshops each year. As held in March 2004.

 

·         Our long-term goal is to get all the groups running independently of Health Action as Waimea College is doing this year. 

 

Photos still coming ... !



 

Youth Boards 2004 Training Report

 

Thursday 11th March at Fairfield House

 

Started off with a quick intro - going round everyone and listing expectations:

Expectations:          find out info

                                    Familiarise

                                    Ways to contribute

                                    Ways to source info

                                    Display ideas

                                    Plan for the boards

                                    Who can help?

                                    Ideas that are quick

                                    Simple/impact

                                    Meet people

                                    A plan of action

 

We then did a group brainstorm about things important to our health and wellbeing.  We also discussed the "Determinants of Health" and we looked at two such lists:

 

Social Determinants of Health -  Michael Marmott

 

  1. The social gradient
  2. Stress
  3. Early life
  4. Social Exclusion
  5. Work
  6. Unemployment
  7. Social support
  8. Addiction
  9. Food
  10. Transport

Determinants of Health - NZ Health Strategy

 

  1. Genetic Inheritance
  2. Age
  3. Gender
  4. Ethnicity
  5. Income
  6. Education
  7. Employment
  8. Housing
  9. Sense of control over life circumstances
  10. Access to health care service

These lists do not go in order of what is most important ; they are just lists over which no one thing holds importance over another.

 

Determinants of Youth Health - GROUP BRAINSTORM: What affects your health and wellbeing?

These are in no particular order either.

 

We then looked at the plan for Youth Boards 2004.  We discussed the first displays which reflect groups that students have in their schools, eg Peer Mediators/Mentors and committees such as SADD.

This year each school will then prepare a theme display to circulate round the schools to cut down the workload.

 

Health Action's role: in future Health Action will phase out the position of Youth Board coordinator, but will still run the training session at the beginning of the year; the idea being that older students in the groups will train younger ones and so on, with Health Action available to call on for information if needed.

 

The topics for the five rotating displays were decided on by voting for some of the brainstorm ideas.  Each person had three votes.  We tallied the top five topics. 

 

Top Topics for 2004 displays

           

Each display needs to include some support services specific to your topic.

 

Health Action can help with sourcing information, some pamphlets were included in the training packs, and the Youth Services Directory can be accessed on this website: http://www.healthaction.org.nz/all.htm   

 

Dates for the rotation of displays were also set.

Each group was given some time to plan their displays on their school groups and first meeting times with Pip were set.

 

The workshop was then wrapped up with a couple of evaluation questions about whether people's expectations had been met and what they got out of the day.