Health Rocks!® is a prevention and decision-making program, which also provides key health messages. Curricula is taught by teen/adult leadership teams that help youth learn key health messages and skills such as critical thinking, how to manage stress, how to handle peer pressure, and how to communicate effectively. Special emphasis is placed on tobacco use prevention. The program also includes components that bring youth and adults together as partners in developing community strategies that prepare young people to make healthy lifestyle choices. Developing life skills, such as communicating with others, managing change, and dealing with stress, helps youth develop internal strength to resist risky behaviors. The Health Rocks! healthy life curricula series allows participants to experience activities that help them learn and adopt many important skills, and understand the issues and effects of tobacco use and other risky behaviors. All aspects of the program, including its curriculum, implementation, and evaluation, are independent from the initiative's funder, Philip Morris USA.
The goals are:
Reduce youth smoking and tobacco use.
Help youth build life skills which lead to healthy lifestyle choices with special emphasis on youth smoking and tobacco use prevention.
Engage youth and adults in partnership to develop and implement community strategies that promote healthy lifestyle choices.
Build positive, enduring relationships, with youth involved as full partners, through widely varying "communities of interest" to address youth risk behaviors.
Since its inception, the Health Rocks! healthy life program has been implemented in partnership with Mississippi State University Extension (MSU), which serves as the virtual training facility - providing training to youth/adult implementation teams, incentive support, personal and web-based technical assistance, and facilitating program evaluation and reporting. Both state-level and community grants are available.
For more information about Health Rocks! implementation see http://msucares.com/4h_Youth/health_rocks/