Programs| “The biggest failure is that by and large people have never told the youth of America that we believe in them, and that’s what programs need to do. If you want to be successful, you can’t just spew out information to kids and expect them to embrace a concept and live by it. You need to give students the core fundamentals of empowerment by telling them that we believe that they can make good and healthy choices, not just for one day, for one week, not just until they graduate from a specific program, but that they can learn to make good healthy choices over the course of a lifetime.” - Dr. Nanci Coppola, Executive Director |
Classroom Component:
Healthy Respect Youth Program: Grades 7 - 11
The Healthy Respect Youth Program illustrates the power and delicacy of the human reproductive faculties with 23 interactive lessons that challenge and encourage young people to adopt abstinence as a lifestyle that is both desirable and achievable. The program is a train-the-trainer model where educators across the country are trained to deliver the program as part of a health curriculum. The program is cross-walked to meet the requirements for health as set forth by the US Department of Education and the NYS Department of Education. Student progress is monitored and measured by confidential pre-and post course surveys.
Healthy Respect Character Education Program: Grades 4 - 6
The Healthy Respect Character Education program focuses on self-esteem, self-confidence and self-efficacy. Students learn the skills necessary to resist unhealthy behaviors relating to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, violence and sexual activity. The program employs highly trained male/female instructor teams to present 26 interactive lessons that challenge and encourage young people to adopt abstinence from all risky behaviors as a lifestyle that is both desirable and achievable. The instructors are hired, trained and evaluated by Healthy Respect staff and work in close collaboration with teachers on site in the classroom. Student progress is monitored and measured by confidential pre-and post course surveys. A long-range tracking strategy is in place to monitor students' attitudes and behavior throughout a 5-year period. The Healthy Respect Character Education has been selected to be a part of a national cross-site evaluation to study best practices in the field of abstinence education.
The character education program utilizes psychosocial principles to increase student knowledge, change attitudes surrounding all risk behaviors, change attitudes and ultimately lead to behavior change.
The themes of Healthy Respect include Do NO Harm (to yourself, others and your future), abstinence until marriage, adoption as a viable best choice for an unmarried pregnant teen, and the importance of finishing high school and seeking higher education.
Topics covered include:
| Healthy Respect Student Topics | |
| Communication Skills | Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
| Human Growth & Development | Emotional Health & Character Formation |
| Sexual Health & Behavior | Family Life & Relationships |
| Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs | Media & Society |
Parent / Guardian Workshops:
Parents / Guardians are recognized as the primary educators of children
in the area of human sexuality. Classroom instruction is reinforced through
a family component that includes Parent Workshops, Ask Your Parents
homework, and Parent Communication Workshops.
Parent Workshops: These workshops provide an educational forum for parents to learn about sexually transmitted infections to encourage and equip parents to talk to their teenagers about sex, relationships, and abstinence until marriage. Parents / Guardians are exposed to the curriculum that students receive in the classroom component of the program.
Parent Communication Workshops: These workshops open the dialogue between parents/ guardians and children to ensure that the parent understands his/her role as the primary sexuality educator for their children. Parents learn important skills such as: improving parent-child communication, helping their children to resist peer pressure, learning the importance of when and how to talk to their children, and countering the influence of media messages.
Ask Your Parent Homework: Homework is sent home so parents / guardians and students can communicate regularly about important topics such as educational goals, family values, teen pregnancy, communication and sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
After-School Programs: The Healthy Respect program offers 20 hours of safe after-school programming supervised by our instructors and school personnel. Ten hours of programming time is spent with Healthy Respect instructors delivering the youth development and abstinence message in a very interactive and casual format. Ballroom Dance workshops, conducted by professional dancers, are used to teach young people to appropriately interact with each other in public and give them an alternative to the sexualized dancing that they see on most music videos.