In this past week’s podcast I talked about some online resources to check out for child and teen health education. These resources are just the tip of the iceberg. What do you do with the vast amount of information out there?

In this series here on the Nursing Show podcast site, I will point to some recent nursing ideas that will give you some concrete ideas on how to implement some educational interventions to help children and teens to understand their role in making healthy choices in their lives. Today, let’s talk about teens.

Teens are in that stage of their lives where risk taking and independence often go hand in hand. Many may not even realize that their behaviors are a risky as they are and would rein themselves in when given the opportunity and the information to make an informed decision. If they still insist on making risky choices, the health care team needs to provide them with the tools and resources to protect themselves.

For instance, 16 year old Joe wants to ride his ATV after school every day. This is a risky behavior that could result in serious injury. What can Joe do to reduce his risk while riding his ATV?

• Wear a helmet
• Choose a safe riding area
• Attend an ATV safety course
• Make a list of safety rules for himself
• Understand basic maintenance of his ATV
• Refuse to ride with passengers

These are all possibilities. A recent news item from Illinois looks at a flight paramedic there who had seen enough preventable ATV accidents and decided to do something about it. He contacted his local children’s hospital and asked if they would start an initiative to teach ATV safety in the community to teens. The hospital system said yes and a new teen health and safety program was born.

The paramedic and his flight nurse companion will be paid by their employer to travel to local fairs and events to teach about ATV safety. Their goal is to reach 1,000 teens with the message by Fall 2008. The key parts of their message are — wear a helmet and don’t take on passengers.

This is something that can be done in any community. Identify a risky behavior, contact a partner or facility with an interest in that field or population and begin to assemble a program to reach out and provide information to the proposed audience. Contact local celebrities or bands to provide promotional resources or write a song about the issue.

This doesn’t have to be a purely local initiative. *The State of Washington put together a program to educate teens about the dangers inherent in the workplace after they were identified to be more at risk for work-related injuries. Washington collaborated with teachers and accessed publicly available information on injury rates from the federal government. The program was put in place, evaluated, adjusted and re-adjusted based on effectiveness according to teens and teachers. It used videos, games, role-playing, and written materials to achieve a positive result in reducing teen worker injuries.

The lesson here is to not be afraid to think big. The best nursing interventions are often the simplest so don’t try to reinvent the wheel. If you have a program that is successful locally, find out how you can implement the initiative on a larger level.

Act locally, but think globally! It’s true for nursing as well as the environment.
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*Journal Reference:

Linker, D., Miller, M. E., Freeman, K. S., & Burbacher, T. (2005). Health and safety awareness for working teens: developing a successful, statewide program for educating teen workers. Family & Community Health, 28(3), 225-238.

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Good Parenting Resource on Healthy Teens at Amazon.com