Expanding College Advocacy: Empowering Students to Make Change in Communities

Expanding College Advocacy:Empowering Students to MakeChange in Communities

Ada Barros, BS

Yolo County Health Department

Establishing the Coalition

1.Contacted several professors anddepartments to sponsor an internship

2.Collaborated with departments thathad similar internships

3.Collaborated with Internship andCareer Center

4.Recruited through listservs, in-classpresentations, internship fairs, clubpresentations

Developing the Coalition

1.Training, training, training!

•Tobacco 101

•Community Norm Change

•Workplan Development

•Event Planning

•Media Strategies

•Survey Creation and Implementation

•Key Informant Interviews

•Public Speaking

2.Required academic reading – as part ofthe internship credits

Maintaining the Coalition

1.Students write their own workplan (for long-term projects)

-more feelings of ownership

-more accountability

2.Students involved in evaluation

3.Regular satisfaction surveys (every quarter)

4.Current interns responsible for recruitment

5.Incentives!

6.Remember, committed students stickaround!

Model Implementation

This model was implemented at twodifferent educational institutions:

•University of California, Davis

•Woodland Community College

Project Successes

•Elimination of tobacco sales oncampus (UCD 2002)

•Adoption and implementation of a100% smoke-free campus policy(WCC 2003)

•Student government resolutionencouraging no-sponsorships policyfor local bars (UCD 2005)

Balancing On-campus with Off-campus

Current students selected projects thataffect their peers on and off campus.

Examples:

•Education and awareness on campus

•Tobacco-sponsored bar nights

•Smoke-free housing off campus

In Conclusion: Top 3 Key Strategies

•Recruit the appropriate audience

•Provide training that will be useful forcurrent projects and for the students’future careers

•Students must be involved in everyaspect of the project, from needsassessment, project planning, projectimplementation, and evaluation forthem to feel complete ownership