TeenSmart International Programs
TSI's core program, Joven Salud, is a free interactive online adolescent health promotion service in Spanish (
www.jovensalud.net) publicly available at no cost to youth ages 10 to 24 years. These services are supplemented and reinforced by cell phone technology.
The key online services are:
How healthy are you? Brief interactive questionnaires (health, risk, and resilience profiles) that allow adolescents to identify specific risk and protective factors in their lives. Individual and aggregated results are available immediately.
Virtual consultation: Interactive professional consultation and referral email and SMS service that allow adolescents an opportunity to ask health questions and receive answers confidentially and anonymously.
Health topics Encyclopedia: Brief and factual health information of interest to young people and other carefully selected adolescent health-related internet links.
Community Health Resource Directory: Names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and websites of organizations and institutions that deliver health services or support to young people.
Inform Yourself/Help Yourself: Interactive E-learning courses: These courses are based on the 14-module “Smart Choices! Smart Life!” course. The courses are focused directly on the prevention of six risk behaviors and the development of life skills. Some courses emphasize leadership on specific areas such as violence prevention, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and teen pregnancy prevention.
Information Bulletin: An announcement space for communicating events and information of special interest to adolescents.
Many adolescents like the fifteen year old boy below, are grateful for the positive changes that Joven Salud has brought into their lives:
"I was one of the least disciplined students in my section, I loved to fool around...but since I started the course, I met people who have brought me closer to values that have helped me. Now I am the second best student in my section and my goal is to be a good student and invite people who were like I used to be to take this course as enthusiastically as I did, so they can experience the change." Recent Successes and Current Challenges
In July 2011, TeenSmart International launched a brand new e-learning platform. Joven Salud, TSI's free online service for youth 10 to 24 years of age, was redesigned to include seven online courses to promote healthier, more effective and satisfying lives for high risk youth. Joven Salud was created in 2010.
The new platform is vibrant, colorful and contains powerful images and videos that are attractive to young people. Within one year, Joven Salud's number of users doubled from 3,500 in 2010 to more than 8,000 users last year. Last year, Joven Salud also introduced a built-in online evaluation monitoring system that permits continuous monitoring of use, satisfaction and impact and tracks teens' knowledge, attitudes and health behaviors to ensure evidence-based continuous improvement of best practices.
What we need
TeenSmart needs your help to make its programs available to high risk youth. TSI is looking for sponsors for different schemes. Sponsor an entire school of between 120-150 students - $6,000 a year; Sponsor an entire school for one month - $500; Sponsor 5 teens (use of all of TSI’s services for one year) - $150 per year; Sponsor 1 teen (use of all of TSI’s services for one year) - $30 per year.
Sponsorship guarantees:
- Student screening on health behaviors, protective factors and risk factors.
- One year of virtual counseling, an invitation to the five best student leaders to the International TeenSmart Conference at the end of the year.
- 60 online courses for the institution (when sponsoring a school)
- A graduation ceremony for 60 students
- T-shirts with the “Smart Choices, Smart Life” logo
- Follow-up visits from TeenSmart staff to help the institution achieve program goals regarding self-improvement among students.