Adolescent Health Care Communication Program Symposium
May 5, 2009

The Adolescent Health Care Communication Program (AHCCP) has its roots in the Teen Outreach Reproductive CHallenge (TORCH) program in New York City. Because of its success in bridging the gap between teens and their health care providers, the National Institute decided to export the good work TORCH does across the country. In 2008, we launched the AHCCP Expansion Project and awarded grants to programs in three states—Pennsylvania, Oregon, and California—to develop and implement the AHCCP in their communities.

On Monday, May 4th, 2009, the National Institute sponsored the first AHCCP Symposium in order to bring together representatives from the three grantee programs, as well as members of the AHCCP Advisory Board and Steering Committee, to explore best practices and troubleshoot any problems the grantees faced when implementing their programs. Our goal was to find out what works, where, and why.

The symposium began with presentations from staff and youth representatives from each grantee group. The presenters shared how they have adapted the AHCCP to meet the unique needs of their own communities.

The afternoon was devoted to discussing the challenges grantees encountered during the implementation of their AHCCP. Dr. David Bell, Medical Director from the Young Men’s Clinic in New York City addressed issues surrounding male involvement, recruitment and retention.

AHCCP Steering Committee Chair and Deputy Director of the National Centers on Sexuality at San Francisco State University Peter Sawires facilitated a discussion about how to implement the AHCCP in a conservative community, how to offer constructive feedback to health care providers without breaking the confidence of the provider, as well as how to approach teaching hospitals in order to schedule an AHCCP workshop. Finally, Elise Schuster, MPH at Columbia introduced new evaluation tools to help assess the effectiveness of the AHCCP for both the health care providers and the teen educators.

Overall, we had an incredibly productive day of sharing information, addressing challenges, and reaching solutions.

For more information about the AHCCP, please contact Faye Zemel at fzemel@nirhealth.org.