Collective STEP for Youth is a group of professionals and community members who are passionate about building the capacity of organizations serving youth 10-19 to prevent teen pregnancy and enhance adolescent wellbeing.
Would you like to learn more about us? Visit our Newsletter Archives here!  
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
   
Join us for the next STEP Professional Development Opportunity!
 
Attendees will learn the roles and types of the participants (aggressors, targets and bystanders), the developmental aspect of aggression and bullying, conditions that promote or prevent bullying, how to respond appropriately/adult responsiveness (or lack thereof), normal peer conflict v.s. bullying, the impact of bullying, and best practices of prevention and intervention. 
 
Bullying Prevention Training
November 7, 2017
St. Mary's Food Bank
3003 W. Thomas Road
Phoenix, AZ
9:00AM-4:30PM 
Cost: FREE   
 
Register here!  

EVENTS, OPPORTUNITIES & RESOURCES
EVENTS
Pioneer Preparatory School: A Challenge Foundation Academy will host a Scholastic Book Fair between October 16-October 20 with a goal of making sure every student receives one new book this year. To learn more, contact Darryl Bess at 623-933-3733 .
 
Arizona Center for Youth Resources (ACYR) will host the 40th Anniversary Celebration Reception. Listen to inspiring stories from ACYR students and alumni and learn how you can make a difference in the life of youth in our community. Register here.   
 
Alliance for Children & Youth with Unique Challenges (ACYUC) will host an Open House on October 26 from 5PM-7PM at Laveen School District. Learn about the work being done in the community, resources available to support school health and wellness, and how you can get involved. Register today!

OPPORTUNITIES
Texas Campaign Symposium: Call for Presentations. The Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy is seeking presentations for their 7th Annual Symposium. The theme, Empowering the Next Generation, will focus on creating opportunities for Texas youth, empowering them, helping them grow and learn, and equipping them with the tools they need to create a successful future for themselves, their peers and their future families. Click here to access the Call for Presentations information; complete event details can be found at www.TxSymposium.org.   
 
Working with At-Risk Youth (Webinar)
Communities In Schools (CIS) of Western Nevada will be hosting a live training on October 13. CIS serve and provide wraparound support services to students who are at-risk for dropping out. Aside from providing students with basic needs such as food, clothing and school supplies, they also connect students to outside resources for other unmet needs such as medical, dental, vision, mental health, and more. Register here.
 
Are We Making a Difference? Tools to Measure Neighborhood-Level Health & Well-Being (Webinar)
Build Healthy Places Network is hosting this webinar on October 25 as part of their Network Commons discussion, in which four national metrics experts spanning community development, public health, and healthcare will share their efforts developing innovative cross-sector tools to measure neighborhood-level health and well-being.
 
Improving Access to Quality Medical Care (Webinar)
The InSight, the Arizona Telemedicine Program & the Southwest Telehealth Resource Center invite you to a free webinar on October 26 to learn about how the practice and delivery of healthcare is changing, with an emphasis on improving quality, safety, efficiency, & access to care.  
 
Advancing Systems of Services for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (Funding)  
This funding opportunity (HRSA-18-069) from the Health Resources and Services Administration seeks to improve health and wellbeing for children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) and their families. This funding supports state Title V programs and stakeholders through training and technical assistance, patient and family-centered care, improving the process of transitioning youth into the adult health care system, and adopting health care financing models that achieve cost savings.     
 
Healthy Habits: Timing for Developing Sustainable Healthy Behaviors in Children and Adolescents (Funding)
This funding opportunity announcement (R01) from the National Institutes of Health seeks to encourage applications that employ innovative research to identify mechanisms of influence and/or promote positive sustainable health behavior(s) in children and youth (birth to age 21). Applications to promote positive health behavior(s) should target social and cultural factors, including, but not limited to: schools, families, communities, population, food industry, age-appropriate learning tools and games, social media, social networking, technology, and mass media. 
 
The National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) Call for Proposals
The National Indian Child Welfare Association's 36th Annual Protecting Our Children conference is seeking abstract submissions for its April 15-18, 2018, conference to be held in Anchorage, AK. Key presentation topics are family and youth involvement, children's mental health, child welfare, and judicial and legal affairs.  
 
Arizona Center for Youth Resources (ACYR) currently has openings for a Foreign Language Teacher, Administrative Assistant, and an Engagement and Advisement Manager. Learn how to apply here.

The Arizona Department of Economic Security Director's Office of Community Engagement is extending an invitation to community leaders in the Central Region to attend an Informational Forum to enable us to continue a dialogue regarding ways to strengthen the efforts of our shared mission to serve Arizonans. The Forum will be held on Wednesday, November 8th from 10am to 2pm at the Phoenix Elementary School District No 1 Board Room, 1817 N 7th Street, Phoenix AZ 85006. Learn more here.

RESOURCES
Talking to Children About Tragedies & Other News Events-This guide provides information about how to talk with children about events that any child may learn about from social media, friends at school or television. It provides some signs that a child is not coping well with the news about a shooting, natural disaster or some other incident.

The Office of Adolescent Health (OAH) shares tools to help parents and other adults talk with teens about sex and relationships. Have other tough conversations to get through? OAH offers similar guides to talking about drugs and alcohol, peer relationships, smart money management, and more. 

Two publications from Advocates for Youth offer resources and data on sexual health education for young people with disabilities. The first is written for educators; the second is for parents and guardians.    
 
Prepared, A Parent's Field Guide to Teen Relationships, is a brand new tool to help parents of younger teens navigate changing conversations about teen relationships. sexual health, and pregnancy prevention.  
 
New Web Resource for Teens by Teens. The Baltimore City Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative (TPPI) is pleased to announce the release of its new website, UChoose. UChoose was developed for local teens in partnership with the TPPI Youth Advisory Council, a group of Baltimore City teens working to ensure that the UChoose Campaign has youth voice and leadership. The site is full of clear, relevant, and accurate information on birth control, health relationships, and more--take a look today and share it with a young person in your life!    

October Health Observances

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Please fill out the Events, Opportunities & Resources (EOR) form here.
Submit EOR forms the first and third Monday of the month to be included in the newsletter.


EMERGING RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENT HEALTH & WELLBEING
The "Your Body is Awesome Just the Way It Is" Birth Control.       
National Campaign research suggests that improving communication about IUDS and the Implant, (the words, images, and ideas) can have a significant positive impact on young women's perception of these methods. Based on these research insights, the Whoops Proof communications campaign was developed to help women increase their knowledge of, and positive regard for, IUDs and the Implant. Read about the results here.      
 
2016 School Health Policies and Practices Study    
Students in the United States engage in behaviors that place them at risk for the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among youth and adults. These behaviors often are established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood; therefore, it is important to prevent such behaviors at an early age. Because schools have direct contact with more than 95 percent of the nation's young people aged 5-17 years, they play a critical role in promoting the health and safety of young people and helping them establish lifelong healthy behavior patterns. The CDC recently released a new study which examined seven components of school health among a nationally representative sample of public school districts in 2016. 
Prevalence and Correlates of Suicidal Ideation among Transgender Youth in California: Findings from a Representative, Population-Based Sample of High School Students    
This study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, examined gender identity-related disparities in the prevalence of suicidal ideation; evaluated whether established psychosocial factors explained these disparities; and identified correlates of suicidal ideation among all youth and stratified by gender identity. Researchers found that prevalence of past 12-month self-reported suicidal ideation was nearly twice as high for transgender compared with non-transgender youth.      
Digital Self-harm Among Adolescents     
"Digital self-harm" is the anonymous online posting, sending, or otherwise sharing of hurtful content about oneself. This study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, examined the extent of digital self-harm among adolescents. Researchers found that about six percent of students have anonymously posted something online about themselves that was mean. Males were significantly more likely to report participation. Several statistically significant correlates of involvement in digital self-harm were identified, including sexual orientation, experience with school bullying and cyber-bullying, drug use, participation in various forms of adolescent deviance, and depressive symptoms. 

Collective STEP for Youth shares resources for adolescent wellbeing as a service to its partner community.  
Any questions about a resource shared here should be directed to the organization it came from.
The project described is supported by Grant Number TP1AHOOO129 from the Office of Adolescent Health. 
Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.