School Health Education Receives
FIPSE Grant
"Students
learning from students,
teachers learning from teachers,
schools working with schools --
-with all participants benefiting and growing
in the process --
that's what is truly amazing about this program."
(Gwen
Naguwa, M.D.)
The School Health Education Program
(SHEP) in the Office of Medical Education
(OME) recently received a $500,000 Fund
for Innovations in Post-Secondary Education
(FIPSE) grant award from the U.S.
Department of Education. The award will
enable the medical school to expand
the program, which places first year
medical students in six Oahu high schools
to help teach health education. It will
also allow the OME faculty to work with
the DOE to further develop their high
school health education curriculum.
The SHEP faculty include Dr. Gwen
Naguwa, project director, Dr.
Ivy Nip, Dr. Kenton Kramer,
Mr. Mike Fukuda of the Health
Careers Opportunity Program, and Dr.
Richard Kasuya, Director of the
Office of Medical Education.
The SHEP program, which is part of
the medical students' Community Medicine
curriculum, began with a seed grant
from the HMSA Foundation, and allows
first year medical students to work
with teachers at six public high schools
to provide sessions on health-related
topics to adolescents in grades nine
through twelve. The six high schools
are Castle, Farrington, McKinley, Nanakuli,
Roosevelt, and Waipahu.
The major objectives of the program are to
develop a collaborative model between the school
of medicine and the Department of Education
to improve health education in our public high
schools, to provide a community-based service-learning
experience for our medical students, and to
support high school teachers in development
of innovative ways to present their health curriculum.
Some innovative aspects of the program includes
establishing a link between high school teachers
and a professional school, developing a web-based
resource for teachers, using medical school
students and faculty as resources to teach health-related
issues, and helping to provide Problem-Based
Learning (PBL) training to teachers in the State.
"We believe this program
has been a win-win experience for everyone involved,"
said Dr. Richard Kasuya, Director of
the Office of Medical Education. He went on
to say, "We look forward
to expanding our relationship with the DOE and
hopefully this will be an effective model for
other professional schools wishing to collaborate
with K-12 education."
The topics the medical students are teaching
include those identified by the national Youth
Risk Behavior Survey, which samples high school
students across the country. They are:
- Health Living (nutrition/exercise/decision
making);
- Tobacco, Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention;
- Sexual Health;
- and Violence Prevention.
Using innovative ideas, such as preparing a
meal to introduce the food pyramid, using contemporary
films to analyze the effect of the media on
making choices, and small group discussions
to foster frank discussion on drinking and smoking,
the medical students serve as very effective
role models who gain the trust of the high school
students. The medical students are introduced
to the rewards of community involvement and
their future roles as teachers to a sometimes
challenging age group.
The FIPSE grant will also enable the SHEP program
to develop evaluation instruments to assess
the effectiveness of the program, including
medical students' perceptions of service-learning
and attitudinal changes and knowledge gained
among participating high school students.
"Students learning from
students, teachers learning from teachers, schools
working with schools - with all participants
benefiting and growing in the process - that's
what is truly amazing about this program",
is how Dr. Gwen Naguwa, Program Director, summarizes
the project. "We'd like
to thank the FIPSE program and the U.S. Department
of Education for this opportunity to continue
and expand our School Health Education Program."
For additional information on the SHEP program,
contact Dr. Gwen Naguwa at gnaguwa@hawaii.edu.
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