Since its creation in 2012, DePaul’s Office of Health Promotion and Wellness (HPW) has made great strides in implementing various educational programming with the hope of reaching out to students and staff. This fall quarter, the staff of HPW is carrying out their newest resource they hope students and staff will take advantage of. The Health Education Action Team- or HEAT- is a group of peer health educators staffed within The Office of Health Promotion and Wellness who speak and present on a range of health and wellness topics across both of DePaul’s campuses.
HEAT currently consists of six members who were selected and eventually hired for the position the previous spring quarter. All members are required to have and maintain a 3.0 grade point average and must be at least a sophomore in good standing at DePaul. It also helps to have a passion for health, wellness and education. One such member, Katherine Ackerman, discussed sharing that passion with other students. She remarked, “I decided to interview for HEAT because I think peer-to-peer relationships are important. I am pursuing a career in the health sciences, so being able to share that passion in order to help students live healthy lives seemed like the perfect fit”.
As part of their training, members were subject to take part in a week-long training session before fall quarter commenced. Training included listening to speakers like University Counseling Services, team building and strategizing ways to create an inclusive environment among other immersion activities. Through weekly staff meeting, members will continue their education, strengthening their knowledge of HPW’s other educational programming, including Alcohol and Substance Abuse and Sexual/ Relationship Violence Programming. This will enable peer health educators to be all the more prepared to present on more topics beginning winter quarter.
Some prominent issues HEAT covers include stress management, exercise, healthy relationships and mental and emotional wellness. When they are not presenting, HEAT staff can be found in the Lincoln Park Student Center Suite #302 creating informative sheets and brochures for students. They are also actively finding ways to engage students on social media. Cory Bernstein, one peer health educator, discussed the impact of social media and how it presents current students with many possibilities to improve their health and become more aware.
“I think today’s students are more concerned and aware about their health than any generation before them,” he said. “This is very evident with the use of health tracking apps and technology … You see FitBits and Apple watches all over campus nowadays, and I think that’s a strong indicator that students are caring more about their health.”
Reaching out to students to expand discussions on health and wellness topics is what HPW hopes to achieve with the addition of HEAT to their department. As HEAT’s supervisor Nichole Arbino explained, the key is in starting a dialogue. She stated, “HEAT has the ability to establish a peer-to-peer connection with students, which can make students more receptive to what they’re hearing. Because we handle a variety of sensitive topics, it’s so important that students feel comfortable enough to have a dialogue about those topics…We hope to make more students aware of what we do and what we can do for them [and] make students more comfortable talking about their own health and wellness”.
If you, your department, or student organization would like to request HEAT to speak at your function, go to The Office of Health Promotion and Wellness site and under the Educational Programming tab fill out the online form where you will have the option of requesting the peer health educators.