A5 - Supersizing the Impact of Your Adolescent Health Workforce

Adolescence & young adulthood, 10-25, is a stage second only to age 0-5 in terms of critical brain, behavioral, and protective factor development. State AYAH teams include but often don’t fully leverage the State Adolescent Health Coordinator as a powerful resource. Now often managing specific behavior-based grant programs such as Teen Pregnancy Prevention, in a perfect world, they’d help states invest in AYAH through a continuum of Positive Youth Development programming. This workshop will share successes and challenges from several states—in various stages—as they integrate AYA health into MCH and raise the profile of these strategies. Presenters will share an auditing tool to assess state’s level of integration and offer a continuum of tactics to help states be more assertive about integrating adolescent programs and strategies into the larger MCH vision.