UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women S Health

Innovations in Young Women’s Health Award 2010-2011 Proposal Application

Instructions: Complete the following information and provide the other required information listed in the section “Submit a Proposal” by mail or hand-delivered to the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health by Friday, November 19th, 2010. Please note that we will not accept hand-written proposals…all proposals must be typed.

Name of High School: San Francisco High School

Name of Proposal: “De-stress for Success!”

1) Name and Contact information: Please include the contact information (Name, Title, Phone, Email) for the lead student, sponsoring adult, and high school administrator who are submitting the proposal. (Note: The information below is completely fictitious and for demonstration purposes only. Any similarities to real people are completely coincidental.)

Name Title Phone E-mail 415-222- Debra Allen Lead Student 3333 [email protected] Wellness 415-888- Melinda Sanchez Coordinator 9999 [email protected] 415-777- Rosalie Kwan Vice-Principal 5555 [email protected]

2) Project Summary (1 paragraph) Please briefly describe what you plan to do. “De-stress for Success!” is a 10-week program for 15-20 young women to learn about what causes of our stress, how it impacts us, and what we can do about it to stay well and feel good about ourselves and positively live our lives. Meeting weekly, we plan to provide an initial stress-prevention and management workshop and a series of (4) intensive after-school workshops that are followed the next week by “Discuss and De-stress” groups. The intensive after-school workshops will provide information and resources on topics the young women think are most stressful. The “Discuss and De-stress” groups will give girls a chance to reflect and talk about what they learned the previous week and practice together a stress-reduction technique or strategy.

1 Innovations in Young Women’s Health Award 2010-2011 Proposal Application

The final meeting will be a 2 hour session focused on final reflections about the program (all that was learned) and on making a commitment and ongoing plan to take care of oneself …it will also include a 60 minute yoga session. To make available the information about stress and its management, and provide strategies and resources to the greater school community, the Youth Outreach Workers will create a presentation that will be broadcast during the last two weeks of school (Finals week).

3) Need (1–2 paragraphs): Briefly explain why this project is important to young women’s health and wellness and discuss why it is needed in your school. What other efforts, if any, are underway at your school to address this need?

Every young woman experiences stress…it’s a part of life. Stress can come from many sources in different degrees of intensity, such as pressure to get good grades, relationships, family issues, and pressure to look or be a certain way, to name a few. If you don’t know how to handle stress and deal with it in healthy ways, it can negatively impact your health, your outlook on life, your relationships, and your future. So It is important for young women to understand what causes us stress, how stress makes us feel, how we deal with stress both positively and negatively, and finally to learn ways of preventing or reducing stress and taking care of ourselves.

Right now, there is very little being done at our school to help young women understand and take charge of our stress. Many activities on campus have a focus on receiving a grade or earning credit. We need a safe place to go to learn and talk about stress, especially stressors that can be specific to young women, and how to “de-stress” and stay healthy.

4) Project Goals and Objectives: Briefly describe the overall Goal for your project (1-2 sentences).

The overall goal for “De-stress for Success!” is to help young women understand and take charge of our stressors and so that we can be healthy and stay well.

List 3 specific objectives that you plan to meet in order to accomplish this goal (1-2 sentences each).

Objective 1: Our first objective is to inform young women about the causes and impacts of stress and provide them with a safe place to learn and talk about it.

Objective 2: Our second objective is to teach young women skills and strategies for identifying their own stressors before they get too big and managing their stress in healthy ways.

Objective 3:

Our third objective is to provide young women with additional resources for help and ongoing support for staying well and “de-stressing.”

5) Project Description (1-2 pages): Please briefly describe your project.

a. What kinds of activities are you planning to accomplish each of the objectives you listed in the above question?

“De-stress for Success!” will be a 10-week group program which will require students’ full commitment to participate (we want them to come to each meeting). With the support of our Wellness Coordinator, Ms. Sanchez, the Youth Outreach Workers will organize and co-facilitate (with Ms. Sanchez) each weekly meeting. We realize that talking about stress and things that make us feel stressed could bring up some painful things, so before beginning our program we will consult with Dr. Elida Bautista about how best to handle this at our school.

For objective 1, “to inform young women about the causes and impacts of stress and provide them with a safe place to learn and talk about it,” we plan to provide a series of 4 intensive after-school workshops that will address topics that girls find stressful, such as time management and getting good grades, body-image and self-esteem, and healthy relationships (see budget below for specific resources to be used). While the group provides the young women with a safe place to learn and explore, the intensive workshops will promote discussion and provide topic-specific resources and support.

For objective 2, “to teach young women skills and strategies for identifying their stressors before they get too big and managing their stress in healthy ways,” we plan to provide an initial workshop on stress reduction strategies and techniques that will be practiced in 4 “Discuss and De-stress” groups that will follow each intensive after-school workshop. The “Discuss and De- stress” groups will promote deeper exploration of the topic presented the previous week, allow for personal sharing, and provide “practice time” to reinforce the stress reduction and management techniques learned at the initial training.

For objective 3, “to provide young women with additional resources for help and ongoing support for staying well and ‘de-stressing’,” we plan to use the entire program as a way of building support between the girls, “open the door” and make girls feel welcome to our own Wellness Services, and build relationships with people and support services outside or our school, who the girls might wish to follow up with. Our final meeting with yoga will especially focus on “celebrating” all that the girls have learned and discovered about themselves and each other throughout the group, and making sure the girls know how to continue to get support and take care of themselves after the group ends (which is why we are also giving the girls yoga mats to remind them of their experience and the skills they learned!).

b. When, where, and how often will these activities take place? The weekly program will be take place immediately after-school and will last 90 minutes, except for the last session that includes a final wrap up and 60 minute yoga class, which will take about 2 hours altogether. To accommodate 15-20 students, we will use Miss Nelson’s classroom (for which she has already given permission) and set up the chairs/desks as needed (i.e., in a semicircle for presentation/workshop days, in a circle for “Discuss and De-stress” days).

The stress management and wellness broadcast will be broadcast to the school community during the last two weeks for school, when we have final exams, which is a very stressful time for all students.

c. How many people will participate or be impacted by your project? 15-20 girls will participate in and be impacted by the weekly program. However we expect the larger school community to also receive and be impacted by the information we compile and present on our broadcast. School broadcasts are regularly used in our high school and many students do watch them to get new information and updates.

d. How will you recruit participants? To recruit students to the program, we will first let teachers and staff know about it so that they can announce the program to their students and even talk directly to students that they think might be interested. We will also post signs around school and announce it on our broadcast system. Finally, as Youth Outreach Workers, we tend to know a lot of students who are struggling and will personally invite them to participate. Students who are interested in attending will need to “reserve” their space in the group a week before it begins (2/2/11) by contacting Debra Allen, the lead student.

If more than 20 students want to participate, we will have to do “first come, first served” in order to be fair, so we stop taking reservations when we reach 20. But we will have a “wait list” for those girls in case someone doesn’t show up at the first or second groups. Then we’ll take girls from the “wait list” until we reach 20. Still, we want to make sure that girls who want help and support with stress get information. So, we will ask the girls on the “wait list” if they would like us to provide them with information from the workshops, and put together extra packets that they could pick up in the Wellness Office. This will also be a good chance to introduce them to the Wellness Office and staff and the support they can get there, if they haven’t already visited.

To encourage students to watch our broadcast through to the end, we will have a “contest” that asks them to answer a quiz question at the end of the broadcast segment that is based on what they just learned. Students submit their answer to the quiz question at the Wellness Center. Correct answers are then entered into a raffle to receive a prize. We will run the contest for two weeks and have one raffle prize each week. The prizes will be related to stress-management and wellness and have about a $25 value. Examples of possible prizes include a yoga mat or a gift card to a vendor specializing in healthy food or health/wellness products.

6) Evaluation (3 paragraphs): Look at the objectives you listed above, as well as the activities you will conduct to accomplish each objective. Now consider how you will know whether your activities were successful in accomplishing each objective. Describe below how you will measure each objective. (For example, how will you know how participants were - or were not - impacted by your project? How will you show changes or differences in what participants learned from the beginning to the end? ) Consider using quantitative measures (i.e., surveys, attendance sheets, tallies, etc.) and qualitative measures (i.e., focus groups, interviews, written reflections, etc.).

Evaluation of Objective 1: To evaluate objective 1, “to inform young women about the causes and impacts of stress and provide them with a safe place to learn and talk about it,” participants will complete brief questionnaires after each workshop asking them about what they learned and what they could do or where they could go if that issue was causing them stress. We will also ask them what else they would have liked to learn about so that we can try to get them information/resources they didn’t get or maybe were too uncomfortable to ask about. This kind of question will also help us plan if we were to do the program again.

Evaluation of Objective 2: To evaluate Objective 2, “to teach young women skills and strategies for identifying their stressors before they get too big and managing their stress in healthy ways,” we will ask girls to keep daily logs or journals of what’s causing them stress and how they’re dealing with it. We think this activity will help to reinforce what they’re learning. At the end of the program, we will ask them to review their logs/journals and share what they observed to be their most effective way of dealing with stress.

Evaluation of Objective 3: To evaluate objective 3, “to provide young women with additional resources for help and ongoing support for staying well and ‘de-stressing’,” we will ask young women to make a “commitment to themselves” at the end of the group by creating their own plan for staying healthy and de-stressed. This plan should be based on the information, strategies, and resources they learned about in the group. The creation of a plan will be a good testimony of the success of the group.

7) Key Participants (Bulleted list): Please list the key players who will be involved in implementing your project, what their roles will be, and how much time (weekly) they will be required to spend on this project. If you are considering using speakers from other organizations, please list them as well.

Time spent on Name/Title Key Role this project Lead Student, organize speakers, Debra Allen/Youth conduct outreach, co-facilitate Outreach Worker groups (with Ms. Sanchez), create (Senior) broadcast presentation 2 hrs/week Shalinda Greene/Youth Contact speakers, conduct Outreach Worker outreach, and create broadcast (Junior) presentation 1 hrs/week Melinda Sanchez, Wellness Supervise YOW’s, co-facilitate Coordinator group 2 hrs/week UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Provide stress reduction workshop Medicine to group 90 minutes Marguerite Lamkin, Registered Provide workshop to group on Dietician stress and nutrition 90 minutes Jennifer Berger, Provide workshop to group on About-Face media, body-image, and stress 90 minutes Gemma Simpson, Provide workshop to group on time Counselor “balancing” and managing tasks 90 minutes Elida Bautista, PhD, UCSF Provide presentation to group on General Hospital healthy relationships 90 minutes Maggie Reggiano Provide yoga workshop 60 minutes 8) Timeline: Please provide a timeline for your project, from the very beginning (i.e., finalizing project plans, creating materials, conducting outreach, providing workshops, etc.) to the very end (i.e., synthesizing evaluation results and writing the final report). (January 31st, 2011 – May 18th, 2011).

Date Description of activity/event Conduct outreach to recruit students Pre-implementation Begin contacting speakers to schedule workshops (month of January) Get mental health consultation with Dr. Elida Bautista 2/2/11 1st meeting – group goals, agreements, agenda 2/9/11 Osher workshop on stress reduction 2/16/11 Stress and nutrition workshops 2/23/11 Discuss and De-stress meeting About-face workshop on media, body-image, and 3/2/11 stress 3/9/11 Discuss and De-stress meeting 3/16/11 Balancing time/juggling demands workshop 3/23/11 Discuss and De-stress meeting 3/30/11 Spring Break – no meeting 4/6/11 Healthy relationships workshop 4/13/11 Discuss and De-stress meeting 4/20/11 Final meeting with yoga 4/27/11 Begin working on presentation for broadcast 5/6/11 Post presentation to broadcast for students 5/9/11 Work on final report 5/18/11 Submit final report

9) Budget: How much money is required for this project to be successful? Please list how much money you need and how it will be used. (Note: Money may be used to pay students who receive a stipend, like YOWS, or outreach workers, if it is an extra project that goes “above and beyond” what they are already being paid to do.

Requested Description of Expenses Amount Snacks for groups ($50/week x 10 weeks) 500.00 Osher Center for Integrative Medicine training 150.00

About-Face workshop 300.00 Yoga group instruction 150.00 Stipends for YOW’s (3 hrs/week X 10 weeks) 300.00 Journals (approx $6 X 20) 120.00 Yoga mats (approx $9 X 20) 180.00 Raffle prizes for broadcast quiz ($25 X 2) 50.00 Total Amount Requested: 1750.00

10) Is there anything else that would be helpful for us to know in considering your project proposal? We believe that “De-stress for Success!” will be very beneficial to the students and achieve the outcomes we have described. If funded, (and after we have learned about our impact), we would like to explore how this program might be continued in future years (with less funding). We would be very interested in working with our workshop providers/vendors to create a curriculum that might be replicated by YOW’s and staff.

Thank you for completing this proposal application. Please remember to include this proposal, as well as the following materials, in your proposal package:

 W9 form  Consent to Participate  Photo/Video Releases  Three Letters of Support (one from the lead student, one from the sponsoring adult, and one from a high school administrator)

Proposals will not be considered if all of the above items are not completed and included in the proposal package.

If mailing the proposal package, please postmark by Friday, November 19th and send to:

UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health 2356 Sutter Street, Box 1694, San Francisco, CA 94143-1694 Attention: Annemarie Charlesworth, MA

If hand-delivering the proposal package, please deliver by 5 pm Friday, November 19th to:

UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health Women’s Health Resource Center Attention: Annemarie Charlesworth, MA 2356 Sutter Street, 1st Floor San Francisco (cross street is Divisadero)

Awardees will be notified by Wednesday, December 15th, 2010!