UNMC holds Youth Expression of Health (YEOH) workshop

Banquet and community sexual education forum will close workshop on July 29    

The annual Youth Expression of Health (YEOH) workshop will be held July 26 to 29 at Omaha North High School.
 
One of the most successful health education and personal development youth programs in north Omaha, the workshop is sponsored by the Center for Reducing Health Disparities in the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health.
 
The four-day workshop is open to 50 youth between ages 13-19. Sessions run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. The workshop is coordinated by Ira Combs, community liaison and nurse coordinator in north Omaha for the UNMC College of Public Health.
           
The workshop ends with a recognition banquet on Friday, July 29, from 5 to 7 p.m., also at North High School. The banquet will feature presentations by YEOH participants and a display of their posters and other works created during the workshop.
           
The banquet also will feature a community forum with sexual education training for adolescents. The forum is sponsored by the North Omaha Community Care Council/South Omaha Community Care Council Collaborative Focus on Youth Impact.
 
Closing remarks will be delivered by Renaisa S. Anthony M.D., M.P.H., deputy director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities and assistant professor, UNMC College of Public Health.
           
Topics covered during the workshop include health and fitness, teen smoking, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, health disparities, medical research, leadership skills, CPR/first aid, personal finances, job interview skills, and review of the wide variety of career opportunities available in the health professions.
           
The workshop format provides education for young people who seek to draw out their own knowledge and to supplement this knowledge with honest information to enable them to make better informed life choices. The participants engage in role playing and other dynamic activities, so that they leave the workshops with not just text book knowledge, but with the experience of how to act upon that knowledge.
           
The community forum will discuss the relationships between young people and their parents and guardians. All the youth will receive a special DVD – “Not My Kids” – that was produced using students from north Omaha.
 
The students in the DVD discuss sexually related social stresses and how to handle them. In addition, parents and guardians attending the program will receive a separate DVD designed to help them develop better communications with their children on sexually-related issues.
           
For more information on the YEOH workshop or the final banquet program, contact Combs at 402-595-1458 or icombs@unmc.edu.
 
Through world-class research and patient care, UNMC generates breakthroughs that make life better for people throughout Nebraska and beyond. Its education programs train more health professionals than any other institution in the state. Learn more at unmc.edu.