Constanta Teen Instructors Learn to Educate Peers about STIs

By Evangeline Coleman-Crawford

How do today's teens deal with peer pressure regarding sexual activities, substance abuse, and violence? Health professionals today are beginning to realize that teen counselors and leaders can prove to be an effective weapon in educating adolescents and helping to protect them from such health crises as STIs.

In today's society, where peer pressure continues to be a key factor contributing to stress among adolescents, many teens struggle to make sound decisions about whether or not to smoke, use drugs, or engage in premature sexual activity. In addition to dealing with the physical changes of puberty, teens are faced with a wide range of confusing emotions and social pressures. To help prepare adolescents for coping with some of the issues they face during this phase of their lives, healthcare personnel worldwide are implementing healthy lifestyle programs that target and educate teens on topics including sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and substance abuse. These programs arm teens with the knowledge and skills necessary to help them to make responsible health-related decisions.

Teen instructors from the workshop held last September are shown with Johnson and Mayfield (in third row from front: far left and fourth from left, respectively).

One such project is the STI Youth Campaign workshops conducted in Constanta, Romania by US members of AIHA's Constanta/Louiville partnership. The workshop's goal is to reduce a teenager's risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs)—including syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV/AIDS—by using peer role models to disseminate information about STIs to promote healthy and responsible decision-making, and to help teens deal with peer pressure. The program is a part of the partners' health education and promotion campaign whose goal is to increase awareness of STIs among community members, particularly adolescents. As part of its strategy, the campaign collaborates with local NGOs to develop on-going train-the-trainer programs for teen volunteers.

Organized through the Healthy Communities Project directed by Daniel Verman, chief of the Health Promotion Department at the Constanta Public Health Authority, and with support from The Humana Foundation—the lead US partner of the Constanta/Louisville partnership—the STI Youth Campaign involves an extensive curriculum that provides innovative STI prevention education for a selected group of adolescents who subsequently become trainers. The selection of these "teen instructors," currently recruited from three local schools—the Pedagogic College, I.G. H. Duca High School, and Mihai Eminescu High School—is based on their leadership qualities, as well as their ability to reach a wide range of adolescents throughout the community.

Supported by the Public Health Directorate of Constanta County, the STI Youth Campaign curriculum has been taught by two US partners, Jacquelyn Johnson, health education specialist, and June Mayfield, community health services coordinator, at Louisville-Jefferson County Health Department.

Johnson said that the workshops are generally week-long training programs in which the first three days are reserved for curricula activities and the last two days for student presentations. The workshop includes condom demonstrations, physician/patient role-plays, and interactive discussions. Additionally, students are tested before and after each workshop to determine the extent of their knowledge regarding STIs. After observing presentations given by the teen instructors at a local school, Johnson says that she is confident the students benefit from the program and that the materials—including brochures and hand-outs—reach their targeted audience because of the purposefulness and leadership skills of the teen instructors. The teen instructors have trained approximately 25 high school teachers and almost 100 students about STIs.

At the close of the September workshop, students celebrated with a presentation of their rendition of a song by The Beatles.

Last month, Johnson led a second STI workshop—the first was conducted last September with assistance from "Youth for Youth," a local NGO—in Constanta, where students from the Pedagogic College were surprised to learn that Romanian adolescents are now engaging in sexual activity at even younger age then they did. Participants at this year's workshop each received a bag of brochures and free condoms.

Explaining how quickly the Romanian students understood the STI materials and were able to teach fellow students that joined the session later in the week, Johnson says "the whole experience has been a spiritual one for [her]." "The students enthusiastically absorbed the information at a very fast pace, every day," she explains, comparatively noting that in the US, training procedures are usually extended and often repetitive to allow for better understanding of the curriculum. Adding that sex education in the Romanian public school system provides very limited information, Johnson says the STI prevention program targeting adolescents is an innovative one of which the students are very receptive.

With the success of the program, Johnson hopes to see this method of information dissemination replicated within other schools and communities throughout Romania.

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