HealhFirst Network
216 South 3rd Avenue
Wausau, WI 54401
(800) 246-5743

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Justin public relations and education specialist at health first networks. What is helpers network do for the schools that you are involved with. So we provide education within the schools and most of the counties we serve. We either provide in tandem with the curriculum that they are providing. Or we might be there main point of education for the students and we either provide education on STI's are sexy transmitted infections and/or on contraceptives as well. So in one of the schools, in particular, we are one of many community partners that come in so we provide as a set on STI's in contraceptives and then they also have other community partners come in and talk about other things related to healthy relationships. Sexual activity and the law and things of that nature wears other schools. We are there main point of education and maybe the only education that they are receiving as far as contraceptives or STI prevention to deliver school presentations. We do we do a lot of school presentations and then we can adapt our presentations to fit whatever grade level were presenting to so for talking with middle school students that might look a little bit different than if we are presenting to seniors and we can really tailor it as well to what the school is looking for. So if they've already covered STI's are contraceptives we can provide the opposite, or if they are looking for something more in that middle school level. I've presented on things such as healthy relationships and consent and communication and focusing more on that piece before we dive into some of those heavier topics so health first network is a lot of things of network means that you're probably involved a lot of different things a lot of different people a lot of different organizations. How are you working with some of the other organizations in the area to help out the students and help out the population as a whole so we work like you said in coalition so we have the tricounty coalition in our southern counties. So in Sauk Juneau in Adams County. We work with different organizations with different health departments talking about the topics that are important to the communities that we serve and the clients that we serve or hope to serve. We are part of coalitions in our northern counties as well and different workgroups in different counties who try to be involved in all the counties again that we serve. Making sure that we are working with our community partners determining how we can help serve those individuals making sure that they are aware of our services that we can serve as a resource we can provide education, we can help provide care at a lower cost or no cost for those who are in need of that. So, although we serve one kind of niche were able to help a wide variety of people at different points in their life know you should care what you mean by care care could be annual visits. It can be STI or sexy transmitted infection screening. It could be pregnancy testing, and referrals for prenatal care or adoption services. It could be for our WIC programs so women, infants and children, and that's our nutrition program so there's a lot of different facets of what we provide. You can find all this information on our website as well. Justin is one or two but you know when you're talking what kids in school so click that I hear about kids texting and doing things like, you know that they shouldn't be doing online on texting you know on different social media sites is that something that you work with students on it as well. It is so that is something that we are starting to see more and more of they will get referred to us. So if they have minor fence and this is their first offense they get referred to us for education so we can provide education on not only the STI's in the contraceptives and things like that to help them take care of themselves or to help them be healthy, but in addition to that we talk to them about the laws in Wisconsin and how partaking in these certain activities are going to affect them or could affect them if they get caught doing those things. So in addition to us again community involvement. We also work with other community organizations that provide education as well. So it's really a group and community effort to ensure that these students are getting the education that they need to hopefully get them on the right path should just be one of the other things that he is working with with the community projects and the involvement that health first networks is in. I'd heard that just recently guys started working with Special Olympics Wisconsin. So in addition to working with special effects Wisconsin. We are working with Special Olympics international as well so they are working to create a curriculum with another organization and then in addition to that we are working on a clinic experience guide that we can provide to the athletes and their caretakers, and through that those individuals will be able to use this guide to help those individuals understand what those reproductive health visits that they might have what those all entail what to expect. What sorts of medical equipment and supplies they might see during that visit just to be able to prepare them for that. So they aren't surprised when they get asked certain questions are not surprised when they're asked to do certain things. So just helps take away some of that fear factor that individuals might have walking into an appointment if they're not sure what two of the anxiety you about is amazing. You know it's it's probably overwhelming to some people, absolutely. And this is geared for special-effects athletes. But really, we see that a lot of individuals it's just sometimes the fear of the unknown whether it's reproductive health or anything in life, so anything that we can do to ease that fear and make people more aware and provide the education that really helps to empower them to come in and be able to advocate for their own health