Parent-Teen Workshop Models Success: Peer Educators Awarded Scholarships for Post Secondary Education

Final event of Healthy Respect school year attended by Yonkers Superintendent of Schools and Mayor’s Executive Assistant

When parents speak, teens listen.

This was one of the themes of the Healthy Respect Parent-Teen Workshop, a well-attended upbeat event that brought a fitting close to the school year. The event was attended by Superintendent of Yonkers Public Schools, Bernard Pierorazio and Mayor Amicone’s Executive Assistant, John Fleming.

Hosted by Principal Robert Riciutti at Emerson Middle School in Yonkers, and coordinated by Ms. Jumana Shehadah, the school’s eighth grade coordinator, the event was attended by 67 students and parents from four Yonkers public schools.

During the event, Healthy Respect awarded eleven $500 scholarships for post-secondary education to Healthy Respect Peer Educators. These peer educators are high school students who were trained to lead classroom discussions with middle school students encouraging them to make more mature and healthy decisions. Peer Educator Awards were given in categories such as “Most Devoted,” “Most Enduring,” “Most Exemplary,” and “Most Compassionate.”

“The peer educators are an essential component of the Healthy Respect holistic approach to abstinence, which brings family and community into the education experience so that teens have positive influences in all areas of their lives,” said John P. Margand, Esq., Chief Executive Officer of Healthy Respect. “We want the peer educators to know how much we appreciate their efforts.”

A special guest at the event was Rashida Jolley, the former Miss District of Columbia and a popular motivational speaker and singer. She had students at the edge of their seats during her talk on making healthy choices and saving sex for marriage, and then had them standing and clapping as she performed her song “Love is Not a Game.” The teens lined up for her autograph and to share their thoughts and feelings afterwards.

“Study after study shows that one of the major factors in a young person’s decisions regarding sex and drugs is the expectations of parents,” said Dr. Nanci Coppola, Director of Curriculum for Healthy Respect, who spoke at the workshop. “The key is for parents to make their expectations known and to begin the communication early – earlier than most parents would expect – because kids today are getting so much information so much earlier on these topics.”

The Parent-Teen Workshop was designed to empower parents and assure them that even though teens may not seem to listen, they hear and want to live up to their parents’ expectations. Amid the festive atmosphere, the all-important relationship between parents and teens was the focus of the day.


Year In Review

The workshop was the final event held by Healthy Respect for the 2006-2007 school year. It was a year that saw success and growth for the abstinence education program, which conducted more classroom sessions and taught more students than ever before.

The numbers are impressive.

In the spring semester, Healthy Respect instructors worked with a total of 1,100 students in four schools, three in Yonkers and three in Brooklyn. When this number is added to the 731 students from the fall semester, Healthy Respect reached a total of 1,831 students during the school year.

“The growth of the Healthy Respect program is encouraging,” said Mr. Margand. “But we never lose sight of the fact that each student needs individual attention and instruction on many levels. That is why we employ a multi-faceted approach to educating and developing the whole student, involving our Healthy Respect classroom instructors, peer educators and the parents of the teens, who can have the biggest effect on the direction of their lives.”

Mr. Margand concluded, “We’re proud of our accomplishments, and we hope to do more for the youth of our communities in the years to come.