Adolescent Health Plan for the Application Year
Adolescent Well-Visits and Health and Wellness Plan
The Title V MCH Program will continue to grow the number of partners conducting activities promoting yearly adolescent well-visits. Funded partners will focus efforts on the value of routine well-visits and educating families about no-cost well-care visits. Other activities will incorporate schools, providers, adolescents, and families on how a well-visit can be conducted concurrently as a sport physical. Title V MCH will continue to inform providers of no cost quality improvement tools to assess clinic environment, policies, and practices related to youth-friendly services, and promote the Nevada SBHC Toolkit.
Title V MCH will continue to fund Carson City Health and Human Services (CCHHS) to promote adolescent health. Education, counseling, and/or referrals will be made to adolescents regarding alcohol and substance use, intimate partner violence, and depression. CCHHS will promote routine well-visits through Facebook and digital signage. Additionally, within the MCAH Section, PREP and SRAE program outreach on trauma-informed care and positive youth development will continue.
Title V MCH will continue to fund 0.10 FTE for 12 nursing personnel within DPBH Community Health Services (CHS) for enabling services to provide adolescents educational materials on teen health, immunizations, reproductive health, nutrition, physical activity, general wellness, and the value of yearly checkups.
Title V MCH will continue to fund Partners Allied for Community Excellence (PACE) to employ one Community Health Worker (CHW) to participate in MCH activities in Elko County and nearby rural communities. Specific emphasis will be placed on care coordination and increasing connections to resources and services for Latino and underserved populations. The CHW will distribute educational information to adolescents on health and wellness and the value of annual well-visits, as well as teach Youth Mental Health First Aid classes for community members.
Outreach with DPBH adolescent-focused programs will continue to be pursued to identify opportunities to leverage efforts. Programs will continue to share relevant materials and events crossing over into Rape Prevention and Education, PREP, SRAE, suicide prevention, tobacco prevention and control, substance use prevention and treatment, sexual and human trafficking prevention, as well as behavioral health and wellness prevention.
Social Media Plan
Title V MCH will fund social media campaigns with DP Video to promote increasing physical activity for adolescent’s ages 12-17 y.o. Messages will contain distinct content for youth, ages 12-13 y.o. and adolescent’s ages 14-17 y.o, by associating physical activity with activities they value.
Trauma-Informed Yoga for Youth Plan
Title V MCH will fund the Urban Lotus Project to conduct Trauma-Informed Yoga for Youth. Outcome evaluations will continue using qualitative student response surveys to assess the benefits of Trauma-Informed Yoga for Youth on high-risk adolescents’ ability to cope with stress and increase resilience.
Nevada Public Health Foundation Plan
Nevada Public Health Foundation (NPHF) will continue offering a Supporting Teens Achieving Real-Life Success (STARS) workshop with support from Title V MCH through informational materials and the use of Reality Works dolls. Four, six-hour classes will aim at improving life skills and supporting pregnant and parenting teens and providing tools for self-sufficiency.
Expectant and Parenting Adolescents Plan
The upcoming Title V MCH Five Year Needs Assessment and SRAE Needs Assessment will gather information about current resources and gaps in care for adolescents, including pregnant and parenting youth.
Adolescent Reproductive Health Programs
Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) (formerly the Abstinence Education Grant Program) Plan
Title V State Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Grant (SRAE) Coordinator will maintain community partners to educate youth on sexual risk avoidance, personal responsibility, self-regulation, goal setting, and healthy decision making, while promoting prevention of youth risk behaviors without normalizing teen sexual activity and emphasizing a focus on a positive future. The program will be implemented in twelve urban and frontier counties around the state. The evidence-based programs (EBP) will be achieved through sub-awards to local organizations located within the twelve counties. Title V MCH funds will not support SRAE efforts, but MCH staff work closely with SRAE on cross cutting interests in positive youth development, teen pregnancy prevention, and outreach to high risk youth.
Three sub-awardees in northern Nevada and one sub-awardee located in southern Nevada will deliver EBPs. The target population is youth 10-19 y.o., including underrepresented youth who identify as Hispanic/Latino, African American, Native American, and vulnerable youth described as youth in, or aging out of foster care, runaway/homeless youth, victims of trafficking, youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and youth in rural areas. The selected EBPs for Nevada SRAE are Promoting Health Among Teens! -Abstinence-Only (PHAT! -AO) and Families Talking Together (FTT) Intervention.
The goal of Nevada SRAE is to reduce teenage pregnancies and births, reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, and offer an inclusive, non-stigmatizing environment for youth to learn about the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by delaying sexual activity. The program will be monitored through various performance measures ranging from output measures, fidelity assurance, approval of adaptation during program implementation, outcome measures, and agency data collection, including a needs assessment.
The proposed approaches recognize the experience of youth from diverse communities, backgrounds, and experiences by acknowledging higher teen pregnancy rates disproportionally impact specific groups. In employing efforts to reduce teen pregnancy among groups disproportionally affected, SRAE will continue working with organizations to build partnerships to better serve youth of color. Research suggests rural youth experience a high teen birth rate (43.3 births per 1,000 females 15-19 years old). Due to Nevada's large number of rural and frontier counties, efforts to increase programming in these service areas will continue, and future partnerships will be identified to reach more counties. Nevada SRAE will serve youth involved in the juvenile justice system and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) community through collaboration and partnerships with sister agencies. Nevada SRAE hopes to increase participant numbers as community partnerships strengthen, local support in the service areas increase, parent and guardian engagement increases, and sub-awardees can reach more youth in their community.
Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) Plan
Nevada Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) plans to maintain and continue to work with community partners to educate youth on both abstinence and contraception with efforts toward preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitting infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. Nevada PREP implements evidence-based program (EBP) models incorporating elements which have been proven to delay sexual activity, increase condom or contraceptive use for sexually active youth, or reduce pregnancy among youth. In addition, Nevada PREP will cover three adulthood preparation subjects: adolescent development, such as promotion of healthy attitudes and values about growth and development and body image; healthy relationships, such as positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics; and healthy life skills, such as goal-setting, decision making, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills, and stress management. Nevada PREP will be implemented in twelve urban and frontier counties around the state. EBPs will be achieved through sub-awards to local organizations located within the twelve counties. Title V MCH funds will not support PREP efforts directly, but MCH staff work closely with PREP on cross cutting interests in positive youth development, teen pregnancy prevention, and outreach to high risk youth.
Three sub-awardees in northern Nevada and two sub-awardees located in southern Nevada will deliver EBPs. PREP targets youth ages 10–19 who are homeless, in foster care, live in rural areas or geographic areas with high teen birth rates or come from racial or ethnic minority groups, including sexual minorities. The program also supports pregnant and parenting youth. The selected EBPs for Nevada PREP are ¡Cuidate!, Sexual Health and Adolescent Risk Prevention, Teen Success, Making Proud Choices, and Reducing the Risk. The program will be monitored through various performance measures ranging from output measures, fidelity assurance, approval of adaption during program implementation, outcome measures, and agency data collection.
Nevada PREP aims to continue fostering connections with the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS); especially in relation to human trafficking, including foster youth, and youth involved with the juvenile justice systems. Nevada PREP will continue to grow partnerships with the Intertribal Council of Nevada (ITCN), the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and the Southern Nevada Health District, and organizations currently receiving Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program Tier 1 funding for evidence-based programs. These partnerships and collaborations will help strengthen efforts to reduce teen pregnancy and births in Nevada. MCH and PREP programs will partner on physical activity promotion for adolescents and continue to work together to support opportunities to increase positive youth development.
Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) – Plan
The Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) Program will align five-year project activities with the National Prevention Strategy by designing safer environments and fostering economic growth for women and girls. Increasing partnerships to collaborate and leverage resources will be required to implement strategies at the community and societal level. The RPE Program will identify common risk and protective factors among multiple types of violence and encourage collaboration with non-traditional partners to increase adoption of a public health approach to violence prevention. Ongoing partnership with the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence (NCEDSV) provides healthy relationship education workshops to professionals and peer advocates serving individuals with developmental disabilities. The workshops will support partners of the Title V MCH Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) Program to address a prominent sexual health disparity for young adults living with a developmental disability, with a heightened vulnerability to sexual assault and abuse. In August 2019, the NCEDSV will present at the National Sexual Assault Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on sexual assault and educating Emergency Medical Systems (EMS) responders. The RPE Program will support Nevada schools in the implementation of new statewide health standards increasing socio-emotional skills in children grades K-12. A multiagency statewide task force, initiated through the Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy (NICRP), will meet quarterly to assist Nevada schools in this process by providing resources and offers to deliver training to teachers, counselors, and social workers responsible for implementing the standards by 2020. Nevada expects to improve the healthy development, physical health, safety, and well-being of adolescents and young adults through data-driven implementation and evaluation with increased technical assistance and training to subrecipients of RPE funding. Additional RPE funding will support evaluators to assist in the completion of a state-level action plan and evaluation plan to improve sexual and domestic violence prevention efforts by the end of 2019.
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