Division of KHS - College of Education - Wayne State University

Generations With Promise
By Dr. Nate McCaughtry
The Generation With Promise (GWP) is in its third year of implementation.
Evaluation results indicate that this program is achieving its goal to empower middle
school students in underserved communities with racial and ethnic health disparities.
Furthermore, this program is driving improvement policies, improving
environmental and youth behavior change related to healthy eating, physical education
or activity, and a tobacco-free lifestyle. Seventeen schools with a total of
4,637 middle-school students in five Cities of Promise each receive $25,000 per
year from the Office of the Surgeon General. The Michigan Department of Community
Health (MDCH) implemented changes to create a healthier school environment
and involve youth in a leadership roles. The project director, Dr. Kimberlydawn
Wisdom, Michigan’s Surgeon General, supported an evaluation team from
Wayne State University, University of Michigan and the Henry Ford Health System.
The leadership and administrative team included MDCH staff from the tobacco
and nutrition/physical activity sections and from the Michigan Department
of Education Coordinated School Health Program Unit. This project is a three-year
grant (2007-2010) supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Detroit Healthy Youth Initiative
By Dr. Nate McCaughtry
The Detroit Healthy Youth Initiative (DHYI) is a 10-year partnership between Wayne State University (WSU) and the Detroit Public Schools
(DPS). The mission is to increase the health of Detroit youth by improving the quality of school health and physical education programs according
to State of Michigan standards and benchmarks. We have begun the third phase of the project, in which WSU works comprehensively
in nearly every DPS high school to enhance physical education (PE), improve health and nutrition education, and form Physical Activity Clubs
(PAC) at each school.
As the third phase began in summer 2009, we visited each high school to recruit administrator, teacher and student support and involvement in
the project. By October, we had commitments from 39 teachers from 23 DPS high schools, which represents approximately 82% of DPS high
school teachers and 84% of the districts' high schools.
We began the project in early November 2009 with a kickoff celebration as part of the district-wide professional development day. Thereafter,
we conducted two professional development workshops for the teachers. As the PE teachers engaged in the implementation of these new curricula,
we set about helping each school establish an after-school or lunchtime PAC. These clubs were meant to be a safe, fun and supportive environment
for students to engage in culturally-relevant lifetime fitness activities outside of conventional PE programs. Each school worked with a
DHYI liaison to form a PAC committee, solicit student input regarding club activities, secure space and permission from administrators, advertise
and recruit students to participate, and begin conducting weekly or bi-weekly PAC sessions.
In February 2010, our attention turned back to the PE teachers as they attended the first culturally-relevant lifetime fitness activity workshops on
Yoga and Pilates. At these workshops, teachers learned to implement these activities and received packages of physical activity equipment and
instructional materials. In mid-April, our work with the PE teachers shifted to the Exemplary Physical Education Curriculum (EPEC) Personal
Conditioning curriculum. The teachers attended a day-long professional development workshop regarding the curriculum and received a comprehensive
equipment and resources package for implementing it. Lastly, we conducted a project celebration to share our successes and plan for
the next year.
The mission of the DHYI has two linked and interconnected goals: (1) increasing the health of Detroit youth, and (2) improving the quality of
school health and physical education. At present, we are able to report outcomes on several of these objectives. As to the degree to which students'
health has increased, we are pleased to announce two important initial results. First, during the baseline physical activity data collection
only 55% of students reported participating in 225 minutes of MVPA during the previous week. However, by data collection points two and
three, that percentage had increased to 61% and 67 % respectively. This shows an upward trend in students' MVPA, which is likely attributed to
the PE class interventions. Second, PACs have been formed at each school that have engaged 2,890 students, many of whom have never participated
in a school-sponsored physical activity program. For the remainder of the youth health/learning related objectives (e.g., motor skillfulness,
fitness knowledge, PE class MVPA, cardiorespiratory fitness, healthy citizenship behaviors, physical activity attitudes, and nutrition
knowledge), we have collected pre-intervention data as applicable and will collect post-intervention data at the end of the school year.
We are equally pleased to report that our goal related to improving the quality of school health and physical education is well underway and, by
all accounts, succeeding. Five of the six project objectives related to improving health and physical education programs center on training teachers
to successfully implement new curricula (e.g., culturally relevant lifetime fitness activities, EPEP Personal Conditioning, pedometer fitness
lessons, web-based resources, Michigan Model for Health: Nutrition Module). At the end of the school year, according to the final measure of
program improvement, our evaluation has found that, to date, 134 PAC club meetings have taken place, which is 134 more than ever before!
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Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom, Michigan’s Surgeon
General is seated in the center of 1st row and
surrounded by GWP students and staff.