Oakwood Healthcare - Taylor Summer Arts & Prevention Academy

What is it?

Each year thousands of adolescents in western Wayne County benefit from health care and prevention services provided by Oakwood’s teen health centers. The Taylor Teen Health Center (TTHC) is a school-linked adolescent health center. Since 1988, TTHC has provided comprehensive, accessible and affordable primary health care, mental health services, HIV/AIDS prevention education and testing and counseling, peer-education programs, nutrition education and substance abuse prevention programs including after-school and summer programs. Through the Taylor Summer Arts & Prevention Academy, the Teen Center positively impacts the attitudes and behaviors of at-risk youth in Taylor. TTHC’s 16th annual Summer Arts & Prevention Academy will be held for six weeks during summer of 2012.

Who is it for?

Approximately 120 youth entering grades 5 through 12 participate in the program. The program is held in one of the school buildings in the Taylor School District. The youth are separated into three groups: 5th–6th graders, 7th–8th graders, and a third group of high-risk high school-aged youth referred by teachers, counselors, the TTOPS program (a juvenile diversion and youth assistance program for first-time offenders) and other youth assistance programs, and the courts. The program will focus its efforts on changing attitudes and behaviors around drug use and violence through the use of research-based curriculums. Certified prevention specialists and counselors from TTHC will facilitate the curricula and operate the overall program. Peer educators will work with the program as mentors to the youth participants and as assistants to the prevention counselors.

Additionally, a parent component is offered that includes parenting classes during the program, facilitated by the prevention counselors. The program will provide door-to-door transportation, as well as healthy lunches and snacks to the youth, who are representative of the highest risk adolescents in the City of Taylor. In addition to the prevention education provided through the use of the curricula, Arts Education (Drama, Music, Dance & Fine Art) is offered to the youth participants. Skilled artists will teach the children healthy self-expression, and incorporate the “prevention message” into their lessons.

Why do they do it?

The program focus is the troubled southwest part of the city. In the US Census 2000 (Form DP-1) this area was reported as being home to 6,889 persons – or 9.7 percent of the city’s population. The area is disproportionately impacted by poverty – with a median household income under $13,000 and with 51 percent of households with children living at or below the poverty level – four times the State of Michigan average at the time. Given the economic circumstances that have beset southeastern Michigan since the last census, it is extremely unlikely that these indicators have improved. Socioeconomic status is often a risk factor predicting adolescent drug use. According to a school survey in 2009, only 19.6 percent of Taylor youth ate five or more daily servings of fruit and vegetables, and less than 50 percent were physically active for one hour or more each day. A similar survey found that only 24.2 percent of high schoolers and 34.1 percent of middle schoolers ate breakfast every day, while 19.7 percent of high schoolers and 25.5 percent of middle schoolers did not eat any breakfast.

Impact

The Taylor Summer Arts & Prevention Academy uses the Michigan Office of Drug Control Policy Surveys on Violence – Attitudes and Behaviors and ATOD – Attitudes and Behaviors pre- and post-program surveys. Over the past three years, the program reached and/or exceeded the objective of increasing anti-ATOD attitudes of participants by 10 percent. Across all programs, 100 percent of the items showed an increase in anti-ATOD attitudes. The Violence Prevention results were similar, with a100 percent increase in anti-violence attitudes. The survey data results showed an impressive 8.9 percent decrease in past 30-day use of violent behavior, from the time of the pre-test.

Contact: Jamie Balavitch, CPC-R
Lead Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator
Telephone: 734-287-2076
E-mail: Jamie.Balavitch@Oakwood.org