Exit THCU YETP
site and return to THCU home
What is The Health Communication Unit?
The Health Communication Unit (THCU) at the Centre for Health Promotion,
University of Toronto (U of T), is one of 22 members of the Ontario Health Promotion Resource
System funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion. Begun in 1993, we were developed to provide training
and support in health communication. In 1997/98, our mandate was expanded to include health promotion planning, evaluation, and policy
change. In 2000, it was again expanded to include sustainability.
What is the Youth Engagement Training Project (YETP)?
The Youth Engagement Training Project (YETP) began as an initiative of the TeenNet Resarch Program. In 2001, TeenNet began a project
called Global Youth Voices, which draws on the potential of media technologies to allow young people from diverse communities to interact
in youth-owned ways and spaces. From this work TeenNet developed the EIPARS model for engaging youth in social action and community
health promotion.
EIPARS is a process of six stages through which interactive approaches are used to Engage youth into the project,
and allow them to Identify issues of importance to them. The group then creates a Plan for addressing
some of their concerns, and then mobilizes to Act. Central to the process is a need to continually Reflect/Research/Reward on
the outcomes and successes, and to find ways to Sustain the group and/or action projects.
The Youth Engagement Training Project began as a Health Canada funded initiative to implement the EIPARS process with five youth
centers across Ontario, with a focus on tobacco control. The Dryden Youth Centre, the Sault Ste Marie Teen Centre, The Smith Falls
and District Club for Youth, the Midland Youth Centre and the Solid Rock Youth Centre in Tilbury each worked with TeenNet to develop
and implement youth-driven action projects with a focus on smoking and related issues. The results of this work were captured in two
guidebooks, the “Youth Action Guide for Community-Based Smoking Prevention” and “Making Changes Work in Youth Centres”.
The project is now being taken up and managed by The Health Communication Unit, to disseminate the results of this learning so that
others may use the guidelines to create and manage their own youth engagement and action projects. The Youth Engagement Training Project
aims to train Ontario youth-serving organizations on how to build the capacity of Ontario youth and community organizations to engage
in local tobacco control activities.
The project will focus on the strategic initiatives of tobacco prevention, cessation and education, which will be achieved through workshops on
two different topics, consultations, and print and electronic training resources.
Our Partners
TeenNet
Since 1995 TeenNet Research has been generating new knowledge and developing practical tools for engaging youth in health promotion
using interactive technology. Led by Dr. Harvey Skinner at the University of Toronto, TeenNet works with diverse youth and a network
of collaborating partners locally, nationally and internationally.
To achieve its goal of increasing the number of teens engaged in positive lifestyle behaviours, TeenNet has been a pioneer in combining
innovative website development, community mobilization, and action research. In 1996-97, TeenNet worked directly with youth, health
practitioners and educators to develop an interactive website called CyberIsle (http://www.cyberisle.org) to assist teens address
their physical, emotional, and social health needs.
In May 2000, TeenNet launched a state of the art smoking prevention and cessation resource called the Smoking Zine (http://www.smokingzine.org).
The Smoking Zine is an interactive, multilingual tobacco program that takes a population health approach to adolescent smoking -- focusing
on youth whether they are active smokers or not.
TeenNet initiated the Youth Engagement Training Project and continues to work closely with THCU in delivering the “Train-the-Trainer” workshops
and providing valuable resources such as the organizational change and youth action guide workbooks to workshop participants.
Town Youth Participation Strategies
THCU will partner with Town Youth Participation Strategies (TYPS) to identify the best manner to approach and support Ontario youth
centres to attend the workshop series that best meets their youth tobacco prevention and cessation needs.
TYPS is an association of youth centres and youth groups throughout Ontario, with a focus on groups located within communities with
a population of under 20,000. TYPS has provided workshops and has regular contact with groups from Kenora/Ear Falls/Dryden/
Sioux Lookout in the far North West - to Moose Factory/Kapuskassing in the North - throughout Eastern Ontario - as far south-west as
Chatham/Dresden/Windsor. The youths centres associated with TYPS represent youths from every ethnic and cultural group found in the
province.
The association is an informal linkage of youth centres and youth groups forged through the shared goals and interests of providing
youth, ages 11 to 19 years of age, a safe space to meet, socialize, and learn healthy life skills and lifestyles within a friendly,
drug and alcohol-free environment. TYPS began in 1993 through a project funded by Health Canada with the goal of encouraging youth
centre development in Eastern Ontario. The TYPS approach is based on a participatory development methodology to empower youth
to work with adults to develop and manage their community’s youth programs and centres.
TYPS has extensive experience in organizing conferences and workshops for Youth Centres and Youth Groups. To date there have been
fourteen workshops, each with the average of ten communities attending, for a total of over 140 Ontario communities having participated.
TYPS will advise THCU on the best timing for the workshops and suggest approaches to the youth centres to ensure maximum attendance.
Who should be involved in the Youth Engagement Training Project?
 |
Public health units; |
|
Youth centres; |
|
Youth-serving organizations; |
|
Community organizations; |
|
Youth leaders/coordinators; and/or |
|
Individual youth |
(from small, urban, rural and northern communities in Ontario)
Why should you be involved in the Youth Engagement Training Project?
- You will learn how to initiate and enhance organizational goals and values that could leverage your agency’s ability to support
youth-initiated tobacco projects.
- You will learn how to train, organize and run youth tobacco action groups that can support youth initiated anti-tobacco projects.
- Participation in these valuable workshops is FREE! Travel subsidies are available on a first come first serve
basis and your organization may even be compensated for your relief time.
- For your convenience, the workshops will be held at four different regional locations.
- The workshops focus on tobacco action projects, but the principles taught in the YETP workshops can be applied universally to any
kind of youth action project.
- You will get access to high quality and expert consultations to assist your organization with project start and implementation after
the workshops. These consultation services will be available at absolutely NO COST.
- The workshops present an amazing opportunity to network with your peers and share experiences.
So, if your organization can use the free training on organizational improvement and/or youth engagement, and the follow-up expert
consultations, please register now to reserve your seat!
Youth Engagement Training Project associates
Larry Hershfield
Larry Hershfield is the manager of THCU. He plans all aspects of THCU’s service delivery, including designing, contracting
experts and co-facilitating many workshops. Larry also conducts consultations and contributes significantly to the content
of resource materials. A member of the Centre for Health Promotion at the University
of Toronto since 1991, he has managed, coordinated, and participated in a wide variety of other health promotion projects. Larry
has made major contributions to facilitating health promotion in Ontario through such roles as curriculum consultant and
keynote speaker (e.g., at the Health Promotion Summer School and
the Canadian Health Network). |
 |
Prior to his involvement with the CHP, he held senior positions in the public health field, including Director of Prevention
and Health Promotion Programs Division at the Addiction Research Foundation. Larry’s interest in health communication
and health promotion was shaped by graduate work in social psychology and over 20 years of developing diverse programs.
Larry can be reached by telephone at 416-978-0585 or by email at hershfield.Larry@utoronto.ca.
Please click here for a text file of Larry's biography. |
Meg Morrison
Meg Morrison is a Youth Health Promoter who has spent the past 13 years as a
project manager, researcher, and consultant, specializing in ways to engage
youth in health promotion through interactive technology and community
mobilization. Working with the TeenNet Project at the University of Toronto,
Meg has been researching new ways to train youth workers to support teens in
their communities in youth action, particularly around tobacco issues. Meg has
consulted widely on youth and community strategies to universities, non-
profits and government departments in Canada, Australia and the United States.
She has published in international journals and books, including being the
first author of The Youth Action Guide: Community Based Smoking Prevention.
Meg has presented at over 50 conferences internationally. She holds a Masters
in Health Education from the University of Sydney.
Sherry Biscope
Coming soon!
