Expanding College Advocacy: Empowering Students to Make Change in Communities Ada Barros, BS Yolo County Health Department

Establishing the Coalition 1.Contacted several professors and departments to sponsor an internship 2.Collaborated with departments that had similar internships 3.Collaborated with Internship and Career Center 4.Recruited through listservs, in-class presentations, internship fairs, club presentations

Developing the Coalition 1.Training, training, training! Tobacco 101 Community Norm Change Workplan Development Event Planning Media Strategies Survey Creation and Implementation Key Informant Interviews Public Speaking 2.Required academic reading – as part of the internship credits

Maintaining the Coalition 1.Students write their own workplan (for long- term projects) -more feelings of ownership -more accountability 2.Students involved in evaluation 3.Regular satisfaction surveys (every quarter) 4.Current interns responsible for recruitment 5.Incentives! 6.Remember, committed students stick around!

Model Implementation This model was implemented at two different educational institutions: University of California, Davis Woodland Community College

Project Successes Elimination of tobacco sales on campus (UCD 2002) Adoption and implementation of a 100% smoke-free campus policy (WCC 2003) Student government resolution encouraging no-sponsorships policy for local bars (UCD 2005)

Balancing On-campus with Off-campus Current students selected projects that affect their peers on and off campus. Examples: Education and awareness on campus Tobacco-sponsored bar nights Smoke-free housing off campus

In Conclusion: Top 3 Key Strategies Recruit the appropriate audience Provide training that will be useful for current projects and for the students’ future careers Students must be involved in every aspect of the project, from needs assessment, project planning, project implementation, and evaluation for them to feel complete ownership