Q&A
Youth involvement in Healthy NYC programs and school health initiatives
0:52:05
·
146 sec
Council Member Mercedes Narcisse inquires about efforts to involve young people in shaping Healthy NYC programs and addressing their unique health needs. The DOHMH representative, Michelle Morse, discusses various initiatives focusing on youth engagement, particularly in mental health and school-based programs.
- Emphasis on youth mental health through surveys, town halls, and programs
- School-based initiatives including asthma programming and sexual health education
- Discussion on the importance of early intervention and education for young people to make informed health decisions
Mercedes Narcisse
0:52:05
Good morning and thank you, chair.
0:52:08
My question is about, around young people.
0:52:11
I wanna start with young people.
0:52:14
What efforts are being made to involve young people in shaping health, and, I mean, healthy NYC programs to address the unique health, needs?
0:52:26
And, one of the things too before you answer that question, I don't see enough, teaching being done around the schools because if you want to change the future you have to involve young people and I have not seen that enough around our city.
0:52:43
Can you answer the question I asked?
Michelle Morse
0:52:45
Thank you so much for the question, Sharon Arcees.
0:52:47
On the first, question about how are we engaging youth, one of the areas that we're focusing on right now is youth mental health.
0:52:55
And so we have a number of surveys, town halls, and programs that are really focused on engaging New York City youth around their mental health and behavioral health needs, their risks of suicide and drug use, and a number of other areas.
0:53:10
And our mental hygiene division, has been really leading the way in some of that work, again, both through surveys and surveillance as well as direct engagement of youth, for their own, ideas about how we can best partner and support them.
0:53:24
In terms of your second question around how we engage, New York City Public Schools, there are a few different ways that we do that.
0:53:32
One of the areas of focus, is in asthma programming, where we partner with school nurses and asthma counselors in multiple different schools across the city.
0:53:42
Although we would love to be able to do it in more schools, we are doing that work in schools that have high rates of asthma, and that is one of the areas of focus for us.
0:53:51
We also, of course, have a number of sexual health, areas of focus within our schools, as well.
Mercedes Narcisse
0:53:58
Thank you.
0:53:59
That's very important to involve young people in everything we do if we wanna change the future.
0:54:03
Starting with all the diseases other diseases are we talking about, the chronic illnesses, those young folks need to know and early on so they can make the right decision.
0:54:13
And when it comes to food and diet and exercising, those are the things we need to implement in our, culture for the for the future generation.
0:54:24
There is a study that I heard I cannot remember recall exactly, I don't want to put with the radio, but I know it was one of the radio.
