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This month’s question comes from Nichelle, a health educator with a New York City-based health care center. Nichelle writes:

I was hoping to get more information on resources available around reproductive health. I am facilitating a teen group at the health center, and I am not sure if this is up your alley but I wanted general tips on how to be a better health educator overall.  This month’s focus for the group is reproductive rights. I  want to give accurate information while also facilitating meaningful conversations with the girls.

Nichelle requested a phone conversation, so we scheduled a time to chat. Nichelle is based at a local high school and has been given an opportunity to create a series of workshops for young women attending the school between the ages of 14-18. When she held her first workshop earlier in the year on body image, she had low attendance. But when she held her most recent workshop, more students came.  While Nichelle has been given the freedom to structure the workshops however she wants, she was clear on wanting a higher focus on intersectionality as opposed to feminism. I followed up with her after our conversation with the information we discussed, and today I’m sharing my advice based on preparation, implementation, evaluation, and resources.

Planning

As a health educator, your top priorities are to 1) provide medically accurate and age appropriate health information and 2) provide that information in a way that is memorable and action-specific. The key here is to start with the end in mind, and work backward. By the time participants leave your workshop, what are 2-3 key takeaways or calls to action you want participants to walk away with, above all else? Don’t overwhelm participants with a laundry list of things to know. You can always pique their curiosity enough so that when they have follow-up questions, you can address them (be it in another workshop facilitation or outside of the workshop).

Starting with the end in mind will give you laser focus on what aspects of a topic you want to cover, the key points you want to share, the resources that can provide additional information, and activities that can bring the information to life. This will help you to create a workshop structure that works for you. Also, an advantage Nichelle has is that she is familiar with the participants, of which they are very open with her about their lived experiences as well as topics they want to learn more about. When you know who’ll be in the space, you spend less time in the “getting to know you” phase and you can get right to work engaging with your participants.

Implementation

What’s one way to provide health information that’s memorable and action-specific? Have participants teach back what they’ve just learned using the Teach Back Method . The Teach Back Method helps participants retain information because they’re reciting it in their own words, and since they have to teach someone else what they know, it brings up the motivation to get it right. This works out for you as the health educator because it shows where you need to correct any misunderstandings (if any). Also, this takes the focus off of you being the only expert in the room, as participants come into the space with their own lived experiences. In the case with youth, this can be a great way for them to develop skills in peer education.

Another way is to use real-world examples of the topics you’re teaching. In Nichelle’s case, she wants to have more of an intersectional lens on the topics she covers. And since she wants to cover reproductive rights and the right to parent or not parent in her next workshop, how can she do that using a real-world example?

Take the example of tennis champion Serena Williams’ pregnancy and this article written by Shireen Ahmed for Rewire News, which focuses on the outrage of some people on Serena possibly being pregnant while playing at the 2017 Australian Open, whether she will retire after giving birth, becoming pregnant before marriage, and how the policing of Serena’s body and performance has been steeped in racism and misogynoir. The intersectional connections here would be racism, misogynoir, societal stigma around out of wedlock pregnancies, and how this not only impacts pregnancy but also professional careers. What are some other ways Nichelle can have participants talk about this through an intersectional lens?

Evaluation

Nichelle can always create a short anonymous survey to get feedback from participants, or she can do something that’s more engaging. Here are some examples:

• Plus and Delta: Divide up a piece of flip chart paper or a chalkboard/whiteboard, and label one side as + (plus) and the other side as Δ (delta). Ask participants what they liked about today’s workshop (+) and what things they feel can make the workshop better (Δ). This allows participants to verbally state what they enjoyed (be it the topic, activities, insights from other participants, resources, etc.) or what can be improved. Nichelle can still make this anonymous. Instead of having participants shout out their plusses or deltas, have them write them down on separate post-it notes and place the them under the corresponding section. Take a few minutes to arrange the feedback based into common themes and share them with the participants.
• Poll Everywhere: Many teenagers have access to a cellphone, and you can use Poll Everywhere  for live audience participation (and it’s free for audiences under 25 people). Set it up before the workshop by creating your questions. During the workshop, invite participants to respond by sending a text to your Poll Everywhere 5-digit number once they see the question on the screen.

Resources

Here are some of my favorite resources for reproductive health:

• Bedsider (covers every methods of birth control)
• Guttmacher Institute (covers the latest research and analysis on reproductive health, nationally and globally)
• Advocates for Youth’s “Are You An Askable Parent?” (not healthcare specific, but helps adults work on building trust between themselves and young people)

Providing resources (handouts, articles, names of books, etc.) for participants allows them to do more research on their own time, and they can bring back any insights they want to share with you and the other participants.

Key Takeaway 

Doing workshops with young people around reproductive rights is very fun. Not only can you share medically accurate information, but you can do so in a way gets them thinking more critically (and doing it in a way that they’ll remember.) Just remember to start with the end in mind, and you’re good.