I cannot let this year come to a close without sharing my annual reflections. But first, please allow me to express my deep gratitude to the amazing staff, fellows, alumni and supporters near and far, that make up Peer Health Exchange. Reflecting on the impact Peer Health Exchange has made in 2024, I continue to be moved by your tireless dedication, creativity, and care for our work. We would not exist without you.
Bringing 2024 into sharper focus, there have been several defining moments that all center on PHE’s youth-first approach-- learning from, building with, and listening to young people. In February, we launched the PHE strategic plan extension, for FY25 – FY26, to advance health equity, youth voice, and of course, our mission to build healthier communities with young people. In our bold future, we plan to reach at least one million young people by focusing on expanding our digital reach, furthering our partnerships with other youth-focused organizations and companies, while continuing our legacy of partnering with school districts and community-based organizations to deliver health education curriculum. The plan also provides a blueprint to expand philanthropic support and explores fee-for-service products, including adult training, as well as data sharing agreements with mission-aligned organizations. To ensure our strategy continues to be data-informed, we used key learnings from our FY22-FY24 Strategic Plan Evaluation Report.
In March, I, alongside 20 other education stakeholders on the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards Task Force, launched eight new National Health Education Standards (NHES), the standards by which all health education curricula should be based. In the process, I was most proud to have led a listening session with middle school and high school students, many of whom were Youth Advisory Board members. This was the first time SHAPE America engaged young people directly in this way for their input on the National Standards. These young people provided the Task Force with guidance on inclusive language, and their perspectives on attaining health-related skills. It was wonderful to see youth have a say in their education.
During Mental Health Awareness Month in May, I listened to Surgeon General Vivek Murphy speak at an event, charging listeners to uplift youth mental health, and celebrating the launch of the inaugural (YMHC). This initiative, backed by Pinterest, The Schultz Family Foundation, AmeriCorps, and America Forward, will provide young adults aged 18 to 24 years old with the opportunity to provide peer and near-peer mental health navigation while obtaining quality training, skills, experiences, and credentials to start a career in behavioral health. This Fall, Peer Health Exchange became a partner organization for the program, specifically to help to establish a vibrant and active YMHC member community, provide mental health support, and to co-design and manage the Fellows program. PHE will also gather and share insights from this work with the YMHC team to support the modification and improvement of the program. In January 2025 we'll begin recruiting for the Fellows Leadership Program. What an exciting way to begin the new year!
As PHE provides students with health education in schools across the country, we are committed to ensuring our curricula remain unique, skills-based, youth-informed and evidence-based. In the Summer of 2024, a group of university student interns worked with our Design and Development staff to help refresh our curriculum. These student interns revised any outdated language, made recommendations for better communication to young folks, and ensured language was culturally competent and gender neutral. It was exciting to see their recommendations come to life.
Throughout the busy election season, I hosted three CEO Coffee Chats on Instagram Live with coalition members and youth leaders. In one of these virtual events, I met a high school junior and Teen Advisory Board member at #HalfTheStory, who expressed the desire to be civically engaged before reaching legal voting age. It was a pleasure to share about the importance of exercising your voice on student boards, student government, as well as voting literacy resources and initiatives. We believe in intergenerational, youth-led action and change begins with youth voice, and it was great to create these moments of exchange.
In 2024, we’ve grown our Youth Advisory Board to over 70 active members, as well as added 178,000 new users to our online resource platform selfsea.org, bringing the cumulative total of the app's users to over 600,000 young people! Our in-classroom impact continues to reach around 15,000 students across the country. We’re also expanding our incentivized peer-to-peer education program in high schools throughout Boston and Chicago. I loved hearing Ameerah’s story, a Chicago high schooler who went from receiving PHE programming to delivering health curriculum to her fellow peers.
As we look ahead to 2025, we are eager to continue to build healthy communities alongside young people. Your continued support means the world, and I’m proud to be in this fight together.
Signed,
CEO Dr. Angela Glymph