Talking About Youth Health in BC

Workshop CurriculumIntroduce facilitator(s)and purpose of workshop (2 minutes)Welcome everyone. If you are new to thestudents you may wish to give somecontext for why you are facilitating thisworkshop. For example, “My name isPatrick. I am a Community Health Nurseand I will be leading the workshop thisafternoon. I facilitate this workshopbecause I believe that young people havethe right to play an active role in makingdecisions about their health care and thehealth of their communities.”If you have time, you may want to do anice breaker particularly if students donot know each other. Some suggestedice breakers can be found on page 34,in the Workshop Resources Section (10minutes).Agenda (2 minutes)Briefly share the major objectives of theworkshop:• Creating a forum in which youth voicescan be heard• Giving information back to youthrelated to their health• Exploring possibilities for future actionto improve youth health in theircommunityTalk briefly about how the activities willflow throughout the session.Take care of housekeeping details. Forexample, make sure that everyone knowswhere the washrooms are and remindpeople to turn off cell phones.Group agreement/Ground rules(5-10 minutes)If you have 75 minutes or less to presentthis workshop, you may want to have theGround Rules listed on some chart paperin advance, and then present them to theclass with a brief explanation of why theyare important.If you have the freedom of time in yourworkshop, it is best to solicit the GroupAgreement/Ground Rules from thestudents. Explain that these will be theguidelines for making everyone feelcomfortable participating, and take suggestionsthat everyone can agree on. Ifsomeone suggests a broad concept suchas “I need to feel respected”, try to developthe concept into something more concretewith more specific examples. Askthe participants for recognizable behavioursthat demonstrate the preferred wayof interacting (e.g., “What would respectfulbehaviour look like?”, “How would youknow you were being respected?”).If it is not raised by the students, it isworth adding ‘the Vegas rule’ whichensures that personal information sharedin the group remains in the group, and isnot discussed outside the workshop.IMPORTANT:If you choose to use a triviaquestion that relates to abuse youmay want to remind students at thispoint in the workshop that you aremandated to report if they revealabuse of themselves or anotherperson under 19 years of age.Next Steps: Talking About Youth Health in BC9