Collaborative effort leads to provincial tobacco prevention strategy

trevor.kenney — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 16:37:23 +0000

When ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge nursing instructor Kathy Haight took on the task of reinvigorating stale and dated tobacco prevention resources for her nursing students, she had no idea it would turn into a provincial initiative that would eventually launch the Academy for Tobacco Prevention.

Alberta Health Services officially unveiled The Academy today as a partnership developed with the U of L out of the Tobacco Reduction Program. The thrust of the initiative is to provide teachers with a comprehensive resource for students in Grades 4 to 6 to help them understand the risks of tobacco use and learn ways to resist pressure to use such products.

U of L nursing instructor Kathy Haight led the multidisciplinary effort to reinvigorate dated tobacco prevention resources for elementary and middle school classrooms.

“The resources that I was using to teach my students were developed in 2003, so they were very dated,” says Haight of the genesis of the project. “So much happens in the tobacco industry in terms of both the production of tobacco products and also the legislation associated with their use. The print-based resources were really outdated and when we talk to nursing students about having current evidence, it was a contradiction to be using these resources.”

So she set out to make them current, interactive and digital. In the end, the lessons and resources they created went far beyond anything she could have imagined, including the interactive card game, Shadows of the Academy, that is right out of Hollywood.

How Haight and AHS got to this point required multiple partners along the way, including multidisciplinary work on campus with the Faculty of Education and Faculty of Fine Arts (new media), as well as collaborative work with Lethbridge School District 51 students and teachers.

The Shadows of the Academy card game is one of the key resources the group developed.

Before the resources hit the classroom, Haight had to enlist the services of Tanaka Mutikani, a new media student intern, to translate the complex graphical imagery into the lessons.

“He was amazing for the project. He really bridged between the technology and the application,” she says. “For Tanaka, it was a really sharp learning curve, working with assets from a professional marketing company, learning new software, and he had all the skills and then some to make this work for us.”

She then took the resources to the school district for a test run.

“The contribution that SD 51 made to this project has been priceless,” says Haight. “Combining their teacher expertise with my health education knowledge we were able to come to some real common ground on what would work for teachers in the classroom.”

Haight and her group rolled out the program in Grade 4 and 5 classrooms at Nicholas Sheran, Dr. Gerald B. Probe and Senator Buchanan schools, while nursing instructors were also able to reach St. Mary’s and St. Martha’s schools. A Grade 6 classroom at G.S. Lakie also served in a pilot scenario.

“It really had to meet teacher needs in the classroom and the way to get to that point was to have them in a focus group,” says Haight.

The most popular of the resources was the card game. It proved to not only capture kids’ attention but also seemed to drive home some key prevention messages.

“We know from our pilot testing that students think The Academy is super cool and teachers think it’s really cool too but in amongst all that flash, is there some substance to it, will it actually help to reduce the use of tobacco in our youth population in Alberta,” asks Haight.

Therein lies the next phase of the project. Once the resources are rolled out province wide, she will work with Dr. Noella Piquette of the Faculty of Education to go back into classrooms to gauge their effectiveness.

“We can provide teachers with health education resources but we have an obligation to test those resources to see if they are making a positive impact,” she says. “Teacher time in the classroom is very valuable so we want to give them the best bang for their buck.”

Helping kids recognize the dangers of tobacco

david.kirby — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 22:28:43 +0000

You know that an educational tool needs updating when its major interactive feature is transparencies. Or worse, when the topic is tobacco and the coverage begins and ends with cigarettes and chewing tobacco in a world now faced with cigarillos and e-cigarettes.

Kathy Haight is poised to redevelop the teacher resource kits intended to support Alberta’s Grade 4, 5 and 6 teachers in teaching tobacco prevention.

Fortunately, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Kathy Haight is on the case. With a new $60,000 grant from the Alberta Tobacco Reduction Strategy, the community health nursing instructor is poised to redevelop the teacher resource kits intended to support Alberta’s Grade 4, 5 and 6 teachers in teaching tobacco prevention in the classroom.

Haight plans to replace the 11-year-old paper-and-PDF kits not only with updated information and improved lesson plans, but with resources appropriate to new technology such as the smart boards widely used in classrooms. As a second phase of the update, she also plans to evaluate the effectiveness of this prevention education intervention intended to help kids understand the risks associated with tobacco use.

Perhaps most significant is Haight’s determination to put this content online, so that it can be regularly updated. Doing so will allow Alberta teachers increased access to current information so to keep up with the tobacco companies’ marketing strategies and new products.

Haight points to clever packaging intended to lure teens as one way tobacco companies target children.

“Tobacco companies are coming up with something new every day that targets children. This provides a way to keep teachers up-to-date and informed of changes and best practices in school-based tobacco prevention” says Haight.

As an example, she points to clever packaging intended to lure teens. “The most recent change that I've seen, even in the last four years of delivering this program in the schools, is the popularity of cigarillos. They're individually packaged, so they don't fall within all the laws and regulations, and they're conveniently packaged in bright colors to look like lip glosses and such,” says Haight.

Haight also coordinates opportunities to send her third- and fourth-year nursing students into classrooms as part of their community-health practice courses. While teaching tobacco prevention is part of the Alberta curriculum, it’s up to individual teachers to determine the number of lessons and the depth and breadth of discussion on the topic. The arrangement is win-win because it tends to increase the amount of time teachers dedicate to the topic, plus provides nursing students with practice opportunities to deliver school-based prevention programs in the community.

“My nursing students go into the classroom every week for five consecutive weeks,” says Haight, who now delivers the program to more than 30 classrooms annually in the community, and says demand for the program has increased over the four years she’s been doing it.

With early education, Haight says that children are better equipped down the road to make informed decisions when it comes to tobacco use (the lesson plans purposely move beyond facts and figures to address strategies such as building resiliency skills and recognizing negative peer pressure).

“The intent is to provide children with information prior to them experiencing the peer pressure so to help them pre-contemplate decisions,” she explains. “We intentionally target kids in Grades 4 and 5 in Lethbridge because they transition into middle school for Grade six. The literature is strong to suggest that you want to provide kids with this tobacco prevention intervention before they hit that transition year, because they're at greatest risk when they're in a transition.”

UNews - Kathy Haight

Collaborative effort leads to provincial tobacco prevention strategy

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