When Ebony Smith began practicing yoga, she couldn’t help but feel like an outsider. “There was something about it that I absolutely loved,” she said. “But I didn’t like going to practice, because nobody ever looked like me and I just always kind of felt awkward.” Smith, 35, picked up yoga about seven years ago […]
Innovative Interventions
Hope Squad: School-Based Peer Advocate Program To Prevent Suicide
Hope Squad® is a school-based peer support program that empowers selected students to take action to improve the school environment. Hope Squad members are trained to recognize if they or their peers are at risk for suicide as well as how to encourage peers to seek help from a trusted adult. Research indicates that most […]
Familias Unidas: Parent-Centered Prevention of Risky Behaviors Among Hispanic Youth
Familias Unidas™ Preventive Intervention is a multilevel family-based intervention designed to prevent problem behaviors in Hispanic adolescents. The program engages Hispanic immigrant parents in an empowerment process in which they first build a strong parent-support network and then use the network to increase knowledge of culturally relevant parenting, strengthen parenting skills, and then apply these […]
EMPATHY: Program Designed To Promote Mental Health Skills in Youth
A University of Alberta pilot program designed to promote mental health skills in youth significantly lessened cases of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. The EMPATHY (Empowering a Multimodal Pathway Towards Health Youth) program, which ran in Red Deer public schools from 2013 to 2015, was offered to more than 6,000 youth in grades six through […]
Asian American Family Enhancement Network Bicultural Parenting Education Program (AAFEN B-PEP)
Description: The “Asian American Family Enhancement Network Bicultural Parenting Education Program (AAFEN B-PEP)” is a linguistically and culturally competent parenting education program for Chinese and Korean immigrant parents. The curriculum of this skill-based, interactive and manualized program is designed to enhance the bicultural parenting competency, as well as increase the positive communication and interaction, of […]
Alaska Seeds of Change: How an Indoor Farm in Midtown Anchorage Could Help At-Risk Youth
To help disadvantaged teens and young adults land jobs, an Anchorage mental health provider is staking out ground in the high-tech farming fields of hydroponics and vertical gardening. Inside a warehouse off Arctic Boulevard last month, violet light bathed rows of tall white columns. Leafy greens poked out in vertical rows, marked with handwritten labels […]