CECHE's recently completed Action Plan for its healthy pregnancy promotion program at Garfield Elementary School marked the first phase of its effort to promote progressive health programs and policies in inner city schools and communities. Titled the Positive Pregnancy Peer Advocate Program (PAP), the next phase will train low-income African-American mothers to encourage healthy pregnancies in at-risk communities. Mothers between 15 and 44 years of age with children in the DC school system are taking part in the program.
With funding from the National Capital Area March of Dimes affiliate, PAP aims to increase the birth weight of babies and prevent birth defects, top March of Dime priorities. In interactive school-based workshops, women of childbearing age will learn to avoid low birth weights by improving their nutrition and cutting down on risky practices, including the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Educators contend that DC public school children will also adopt healthier lifestyles and avoid risky behavior as a result of their parents taking part in the project.
| Mothers and children focus of CECHE’s “Positive Pregnancy Peer Advocate Program |
In Phase One, CECHE’s project director Linda Thompson convened workshops at Garfield Elementary for mothers, the school nurse, the Title I Coordinator, and CECHE’s community partners. Together, they developed a PAP Action Plan for putting into practice what the educators preached. Mothers played a key role in this process because the program targets women like them. They discoursed how the training could best address their concerns, practices and knowledge of health issues, and suggested how the program could best change risky behavior. CECHE’s goal is to ensure that the parent planners become the first peer advocates in Phase Two of the program.
| Positive Pregnancy Peer Advocate Team Convenes |
The next step is to put the action plan into practice over a three-year period. A peer advocate leader’s guide will guide the training. Trainers will test the materials developed, recruit and train peer advocates, and implement and evaluate the project—which could become the basis of new progressive health programs and policies adopted by schools and communities to conserve the health of mothers and families in the inner city.
Questions? Comments? Concerns? E-mail CECHE at CECHE@comcast.net
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