Expanding College Advocacy:

Empowering Students to Make Change in

Communities

Ada Barros, BSYolo 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 Coalition1. 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 evaluation3. Regular satisfaction surveys (every

quarter)4. Current interns responsible for

recruitment5. 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