Heroin and Prescription Opiate Taskforce Community Meeting:
A free community conversation on heroin and prescription opiate overdose and addiction on May 31st in Renton, sponsored by the King County Heroin & Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force (formerly MHCADSD). This is a public event and your voice is needed!
The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention Responds to New CDC Report
Increase in Suicide in the United States, 1999-2014 According to a joint statement prepared by partners of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, data in the new CDC report underscores why suicide prevention must remain a national public health priority. Read the statement for more from the Action Alliance
Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and May is National Teen Pregnancy Month – a downloadable Supporter Kit includes 12 ideas for getting involved. Other offerings include:
NPR Story, Morning Edition, April 22, 2016 Stated in the NPR story, “There is one age group that really stands out – girls between the ages of 10 and 14. Though they make up a very small portion of the total suicides, the rate in that group jumped the most – it experienced the largest percent increase, tripling over 15 years from 0.5 to 1.7 per 100,000 people.” Access the story.
CDC Healthy Schools is releasing four NEW professional development resources! CDC Training Tools for Healthy Schools (TTHS) is a comprehensive set of professional development resources to help educators, school health professionals, and administrators create school environments where students are healthy and ready to learn.
Three CDC Healthy Schools tools are now available as online modules to provide users with easier and more flexible access, robust Go Further sections with additional information and resources, and a tailored learning experience through 1–1.5 hour, self-directed modules.
· This tool kit includes information, resources, and worksheets to help users provide follow-up support once a professional development event has been completed.
· This document assists users in starting conversations about professional development by offering basic definitions of professional development, training, and workshops.
· This kit includes audio recorded e-Learning modules introducing users to professional development practices and that will increase the skill-building capacity of staff as they work toward improving health and educational outcomes.
Upcoming webinar from the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools!
This is a reminder to register for the Center’s January 26th webinar, “Sustaining School-Community Approaches”, featuring a recently launched online tool called Partner Build Grow. The Center promotes child wellness and school success by partnering with communities to create collaborative solutions that bridge health and education so that kids are happy, healthy, and motivated to learn. Partner Build Grow uses a four-pronged approach based on promising practices to assist community coalitions in advancing and sustaining school-based child development and behavioral health objectives.
The 90-minute webinar will feature several communities that have successfully implemented cross-sector, school-connected, child health initiatives. Olga Acosta Price, Ph.D., director of CHHCS at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and associate professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health, will be moderating.
Panelists will include: Liz Warner & Patricia Heindel, Ph.D. from the School Culture and Climate Initiative in Northern New Jersey, and Luann Kida, MA, LMSW, Director of Community Schools in Broome County, New York. Additional information about these initiatives can be found through the webinar registration link below.
Participants must have a working microphone & speaker on their computers in order to hear audio during the presentation (webinar will be in VoIP format).
We encourage registrants to preview the Partner Build Grow tool prior to the webinar on 1/26, share with your networks and colleagues, and also to register as a user in our database. Questions and comments can be sent to [email protected].
Washington law on sexual health education states that “the decision as to whether or not a program about sexual health education is to be introduced into the common schools is a matter for determination at the district level by the local school board.” Any district that chooses to provide sexual health education must follow the requirements outlined in the Healthy Youth Act.
All sexual health education offered in Washington public schools must meet the following criteria:
All instruction and materials used must be:
medically and scientifically accurate
age appropriate
appropriate for students regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, and disability status
Abstinence may not be taught to the exclusion of instruction and materials on FDA approved contraceptives and other disease prevention methods. In other words, the instruction must be comprehensive.