Mobile Health Team (MHT)

In order to reach a wider audience, HHPC utilizes trained health educators to provide sexual and reproductive health education and screening services to youth ages of 13 and 24 in Harlem and throughout the broader New York City area.

The interdisciplinary Mobile Health Team, consisting of clinicians, social workers, nursing, and health education students, visit local high schools and community based organizations, including GED, LGBT and alternative to incarceration programs. All outreach staff members serve as health educators who work closely to engage young people through interactive multimedia group workshops, individualized counseling, and non-invasive screening for pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV. In addition, the MHT provides ongoing psychosocial and clinical services to youth at a weekly continuity clinic.

Over the past three years, the MHT program has worked directly with 18 high schools and 13 community based organizations. And in the past year alone, the MHT was able to reach over 2,500 young people through its educational workshops, 750 of which went on to participate in counseling and testing services.

MHT Internships

HHPC provides a valuable site for training and mentoring students from various backgrounds and disciplines. Through HHPC, students receive extensive exposure to community based participatory research (CBPR), the Harlem community, and many of the community members involved with HHPC. The MHT provides public health students with the opportunity to gain invaluable field experience with outreach and education. Each year, three to five students are hired to work as public health interns with the program. Students spend one to two years serving as workshop facilitators, health educators and test counselors. As part of their internship, they receive education, training and mentoring from Project STAY staff as well as outside agencies such as the New York State AIDS Institute, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH) and Planned Parenthood of New York City.

EC as 123 (2006 - 2009)

Funded by the NYC Dept of Health, the "EC as 123" project is aimed at developing and evaluating a social marketing campaign designed to increase awareness about emergency contraception (EC). Social marketing materials for EC have been distributed to community partners and schools throughout NYC, providing an invaluable resource for partners, practitioners and health educators alike. Similarly, a facilitator guide for the EC-theme video, "My Life, My Decision", was created and distributed to provide technical assistance to community partners in using the film as an educational tool in their own work.