NASPA's Health Education and Leadership Program (HELP) began in 1996 as an effort to make HIV/AIDS prevention and other student health concerns a high priority for senior student affairs officers and other leaders on campus. The work of the project was supported through two cooperative agreements with the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under cooperative agreement # U87/CCU313613. HELP closed in September 2005, when NASPA's cooperative agreement with CDC ended; this Web site provides an archive of HELP activities, publications, reports, and documents and offers resources that can be used in linking health and learning on campuses.
History
Through project activities, professional development experiences, and publications, HELP raised awareness and created a growing community of concern in higher education about HIV prevention and related health issues that affect the campus community. During its first four-year phase, the project focused on helping chief student affairs officers recognize that health was an important part of the work of student affairs and that health issues, such as HIV/AIDS, were critical aspects of students' lives that often affected their ability to remain in college and to successfully complete degrees. HELP held a series of regional conferences that brought together representatives of student affairs (including, but not limited to, professional staff in health and counseling centers), academic affairs, campus administration, and students. HELP's project newsletters provided senior student affairs officers with information about important campus health issues. The project conducted a descriptive study and produced a report that highlighted successful programs of HIV prevention within the context of broader health issues.
The Ecological Perspective
In its second phase (2000-2005), HELP worked with selected institutions of higher education to create new models for addressing health on campus, including HIV prevention, that encompassed both individual and community approaches to, and understandings of, health. During this period, HELP staff monitored changes being made on campuses that were using an ecological perspective as conceived and developed by the project. HELP also recognized the importance of student leadership and advocacy as necessary components in building healthy campus communities and found ways to engage students with its work. Reports of program activities contained on this site [link to Ecology Main Page] identify and describe successful strategies for HIV prevention and healthy campus initiatives as they were demonstrated by a variety of NASPA member campuses.
ACTIVITIES ECOLOGY MODEL STUDENT INVOLVEMENT RESOURCES
HHEKC | HELP | Alcohol & Other Drug Knowledge Community | NASPA
HEALTH EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
