New Healthy Native Youth online resource connects health educators to learning opportunities
August 26, 2016
Tribal health educators and public health advocates now have a one-stop online portal to connect to health education curricula designed with Alaska Native and American Indian youth in mind. Earlier this month, the online portal Healthy Native Youth launched its collaborative platform to share health education among Tribal health organizations and communities across the U.S. To be effective, health curricula must be age appropriate, culturally relevant, and reflect the values and learning styles of the learners being taught. The Healthy Native Youth online portal was created to alleviate the challenges of finding health education resources for Alaska Native and American Indian youth that meet these requirements. Healthy Native Youth is helping to expand learning opportunities for our youth. The Health Native Youth online portal (www.healthynativeyouth.org) is a product of a collaborative partnership between the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB), ANTHC, the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona and the University of Texas School of Public Health. The portal is housed on a NPAIHB server and funded through the Indian Health Service HIV program and the Minority AIDS Initiative. It was designed by a team of advisers from Tribal communities to disseminate healthy-decision-making curricula to tribal health educators and teachers, including culturally relevant and appropriate sexually transmitted infections/HIV and teen pregnancy prevention programs for American Indian and Alaska Native youth, and to empower community sites with the resources and tools needed to select and implement evidence-based programs. The Health Native Youth portal emerged from a year-long planning process involving a nationwide workgroup. The portal currently includes the culturally adapted Native It’s Your Game, Circle of Life, Native STAND, Native VOICES and Safe in the Village. The portal allows visitors to filter and compare curricula on several dimensions, including age group, delivery setting, duration, cost and evidence of effectiveness, to determine best-fit for their setting or community. Visitors are also invited to upload and submit culturally-relevant programs for consideration. Health Native Youth also provides supporting materials on the history, evidence-base, and cultural appropriateness of the programs and provides guides on their implementation. You can follow Healthy Native Youth on Facebook for other news and resources: www.facebook.com/HealthyNativeYouth.