Community Health

As part of an effort to increase the participation of South Sudanese in the peace process and now the civic life of their new nation, the Sudan Radio Service provides access to balanced and useful information through radio-based education, news, and entertainment programs presented by local presenters in nine languages. Independent research found that Sudan Radio Service has approximately one million listeners.

Sudan Radio Service also builds the capacity of Sudanese journalists through its Certificate in Broadcast Journalism program and through on-the-job training.

Chronic Care Community Corps (4C) believes that communities hold an important solution to the challenges faced by families caring for elder loved ones with chronic or life-threatening illness. 4C’s mission is to build the capacity of our communities to provide meaningful support to family caregivers. By capturing the wisdom of past, present, and future caregivers in community-based seminars along with complementary web-based learning, 4C equips seminar participants with tools, strategies, and information to proactively support families caring for a loved one.

More than a Dream Teen Pregnancy Prevention for Latino Youth is a collaboration between Education Development Center, the University of Michigan School of Nursing, and the League of United Latin American Citizens’ National Educational Service Centers (LNESC), to find developmentally appropriate and culturally and linguistically relevant youth and parent interventions that address sexual health and pregnancy prevention among Latino youth.

The Dental Therapist Project (DTP) will improve the oral health of underserved children and families by transforming the dental workforce and establishing dental therapist providers as standard members of the dental health team in the United States. Dental therapists receive two years of intensive training to provide preventive oral health care and commonly needed services such as fillings and uncomplicated extractions. They work under the general supervision of an offsite dentist who pre-approves the procedures they perform and reviews their work via phone, fax, and the Internet.

Since 1991, EDC staff have served as consultants and advisors to the World Health Organization (WHO) and have authored numerous publications for WHO on global school health issues. In 1998, HHD was designated as the WHO Collaborating Center to Promote Health Through Schools and Communities. The Center’s goal is to deliver services that strengthen the capacities of schools and communities worldwide to promote the healthy development of students, school personnel, families, and surrounding communities.

EDC is facilitating a policy development project to promote mental health assessments and improve access to mental health services for youth suspended or expelled from California schools. After an analysis of current school district policies on suspension and expulsion from data and focus groups, EDC will determine policy and program recommendations that enable students to receive necessary mental health services in an effort to reduce dropout rates and disparities in access to services.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) enhances the nation’s mental health infrastructure by providing states, government agencies, private organizations, colleges and universities, and suicide survivor and mental health consumer groups with access to the science and experience that can support their efforts to develop programs, implement interventions, and promote policies to prevent suicide.

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention (National Center) provides technical assistance (TA) and training to 106 federally-funded Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grantees and to six Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health) (PL) grantees.

The new EDC e-Learning & Capacity Building Assistance Center will promote the effective delivery of evidence-based behavioral interventions, early HIV counseling, testing, and referrals to African American and Latino communities which are disproportionately burdened by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

This developmental study will produce and pilot an innovative family education intervention aimed at reducing teen drinking and promoting safe driver and passenger behaviors. The intervention targets families with youth 15-17 years old and capitalizes upon a teachable moment, when teen alcohol experimentation and misuse are on the rise and teens and their friends begin getting their licenses.