HELPING MARGINALIZED YOUTH MAKE HEALTHY DECISIONS: A MODEL THAT WORKS

It’s hard being a young person today: 1 in 6 teenagers have seriously considered suicide, 1 in 5 binge drink, and 1 in 10 experience violence in a relationship. It’s harder still for young people from marginalized backgrounds to know how to make healthy decisions, especially as many attend schools that either lack or offer limited health education. The situation has serious implications for students’ academic achievement, dropout rates and life opportunities.

Though this may sound like yet another intractable socioeconomic problem, Peer Health Exchange (PHE) has made measurable progress in addressing it. This innovative nonprofit organization strives to ensure that all young people have the knowledge, skills and resources needed to make healthy decisions. PHE provides skills-based health education in urban high schools in the Bay Area and elsewhere using volunteer college students as peer instructors. And it works: PHE aggressively assesses the impact of its programs, reports its results and reinvests in its most successful efforts. 

Join Louise Langheier, along with several current and former PHE participants and host teachers, to hear about the value of providing these health resources to young adults through this inspirational and practical approach.

Louise Langheier is CEO of Peer Health Exchange. As an undergraduate at Yale University, she co-founded a student volunteer program out of which PHE grew. She was an Aspen Entrepreneurial Education Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow. Langheier sits on the Board of Directors of Generation Citizen and America Achieves and is actively involved with Dwight Hall at Yale’s Center for Public Service and Social Justice.