Goal

Enhance and support collaborative school, community and youth prevention and cessation programs.

Why fund school-based programs with tobacco settlement funds?
Under Proposition 99 guidelines, school-based tobacco prevention programs have often been isolated from the community-based advocacy activities. The Alameda County TUPE program is the most active than any other county in the state. Using a youth development model, the school-based programs will:

• Recruit and train young people as tobacco advocates
• Create a traveling interactive tobacco control fair
• Design and conduct an assessment of comprehensive tobacco free campus environments
• Develop and implement programs to promote and enhance tobacco-free campus environments
• Increase referrals to tobacco cessation programs
• Conduct in-class tobacco prevention education
• Plan and implement school/community tobacco prevention events
• Engage local media as partners in tobacco prevention messages

The infusion of tobacco settlement funding offers an opportunity to build collaborative tobacco-related school-based programs that will include components for:

• School-wide tobacco prevention and advocacy activities
• Collaboration with community-based tobacco prevention and advocacy activities
• Collaborations with school and community health programs such as school-based health centers and other drug prevention/intervention programs
• Contacting and engaging parents in tobacco prevention education and advocacy
• Contacting and engaging school staff, including administrative and teaching staff in tobacco prevention and advocacy
• Contacting and engaging policy makers in tobacco prevention and advocacy

Activities will be designed based on best practices for creating social norm change around the issues of tobacco use prevention and reduction.

Highlights (July 2001 - December 2004)

• Established school-based peer educator groups at 10 high and 2 middle school campuses:
• Provided leadership and skills development training to over 110 peer educators annually (e.g., team building, public speaking, facilitation, curriculum development, media, critical thinking, decision-making, event planning, civic participation, career development, and cultural diversity), using a youth development model.
• Conducted initial assessments at 12 schools and follow-up assessments at 6 schools (interviewed teachers/students/school administrators and observed tobacco use) to determine improvements to tobacco-free campus environments.
• Held monthly meetings with youth leaders to provide training and plan events.
• Implemented educational assemblies, advocacy actions, and school-wide events - got media coverage for some events.
• Developed curricula and educated over 4,000 students in elementary, middle, and high schools about tobacco issues - including targeting, advertising, transnational practices, and health effects of tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Created a comprehensive traveling interactive anti-tobacco display (TUPE Fair), designed to stimulate critical thinking and anti-tobacco classroom education and cessation activities.
• Visited over 80 schools and reached over 22,000 middle and high school students.
• Included a trained educator who stimulated discussion, answered questions about tobacco use, and provided teachers with lessons to accompany the TUPE Fair.
• Referred students for cessation at schools where cessation options are available.
• Gave workshops at annual youth-based tobacco prevention conferences and adult educator conferences - reaching 800 youth and 200 adults annually.