Programs: Health, Wellness, and Safety
Building Partnerships for Youth
This project provides assistance to organizations and communities that choose to provide abstinence programming to youth ages 9 to 13 using a positive youth development approach.click to read more
Health Rocks!®Healthy Life Program
Health Rocks!is a healthy life program with a multi-year effort to develop, implement, and evaluate a nationwide approach to help youth, ages 8-12, develop life skills, with a special emphasis on youth smoking prevention. Go to the Health Rocks! websiteat Mississippi State University Extension at http://msucares.com/4h_Youth/health_rocks/ for more details.
Health Rocks! 2007 State Implementation Grants
Six Land-Grant Universities are supporting state-level implementation of National 4-H Council's Heath Rocks! healthy life curricula targeted at youth ages 8-12. Each grantee will identify and train youth/adult leadership teams which will implement the curriculum locally, reaching a total of grantee 5,000 youth providing a minimum of ten contact hours each (excluding introduction and celebration).
Health Rocks!is a prevention and decision-making program. Curricula is taught by teen/adult leadership teams that help youth learn key health messages and skills such as critical thinking, how to manage stress, how to handle peer pressure, and how to communicate effectively. Special emphasis is placed on tobacco use prevention. Developing life skills, such as communicating with others, managing change, and dealing with stress, helps youth develop internal strength to resist risky behaviors. The Health Rocks!healthy life curricula series will allow participants to experience activities that help them learn and adopt many important skills.
Since its inception, the Health Rocks! healthy life program has been implemented in partnership with Mississippi State University Extension (MSU), which serves as the virtual training facility - providing training to youth/adult implementation teams, incentive support, personal and web-based technical assistance, and facilitating program evaluation and reporting. To assist state grantees with implementation, each will designate a core leadership team of two youth and two adults to attend a 3-day train-the-trainer conference in early June 2007 provided by MSU. MSU will continue to provide direct program support to State Grantees throughout implementation and reporting.
2007 Health Rocks! State Implementation Grantees are:
University of Arizona, Liza Lauxman
University of Arkansas, Brian Helms
University of Delaware, Mark Manno
University of Georgia, Cheryl Varnadoe
South Dakota State University, Karen Pearson
Texas Cooperative Extension, Darlene Locke
You can find information on the 2008 Health Rocks! State Implementation Grant RFP at http://www.fourhcouncil.edu/hwsHealthRocks.aspx