Peer Health Exchange (PHE) provides students with health education in schools across the country using its two unique, skills-based, youth-informed and evidence-based curricula: Pathways, which covers topics such as mental health, sexual health and substance use, and Centered, a social-emotional approach to mental health. Using these guides, students are encouraged to reflect on their values and goals, learn about local health resources, and develop critical skills that will enable them to enhance their health and the health of their communities.
Curriculum Overview
The Pathways curriculum is designed to increase support-seeking behavior by students for their mental health. Students also learn to make informed decisions about alcohol, drugs and sexual health, in order to decrease the rates of under-age substance-use, sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies. This is achieved by empowering young people to act confidently for their health, with a focus on developing core health skills like decision-making, communication, and advocacy for self and others. The 10 modules in Pathways are all focused on promoting students’ agency and access to health resources.
The Centered curriculum seeks to increase students' likelihood to take care of, maintain, and seek resources for mental health through building social and emotional learning competencies and promoting healthy habits. The program, consisting of seven modules, integrates core skills like reflection, assertive communication, thoughtful decision-making, and advocacy, with key knowledge of risks, benefits, and resources related to mental health.
Curriculum Development
The Peer Health Exchange evidence-based curriculum is informed by National Health Education Standards (NHES) and National Sexuality Education Standards (NSES). Peer Health Exchange CEO, Dr. Angela Glymph, sits on the National Taskforce of the National Health Education Standards (NHES), the standards by which all health education curriculum across the country should be based. While developing the latest national standards, released in March 2024, Dr. Glymph led a review session where young people reflected on the positive and negative aspects of their health education experiences in school. Some key takeaways from this review session were that young people desire greater access to local health resources, as well as more inclusive language for navigating health barriers. This information was provided to the National Taskforce and was successfully incorporated into the revised NHES standards for 2024. Peer Health Exchange takes a similar approach, collaborating with high school, college, and graduate level interns to ensure our curriculum remains youth-informed, relevant and effective.
At Peer Health Exchange, our team co-designs and co-develops curriculum with young interns, ranging from high school-aged to the graduate-level, who are paid or receive course credit. “It’s crucial to involve young people in the work. Young people should have input on what they want to learn about,” says Julianne Rocco, Senior Manager of Design & Development, who oversees the interns to review the curriculum, revise any outdated language, make recommendations for better communication to young folks, and ensure language is culturally competent and gender neutral. Rocco commented, “At the end of the day, our educational products and tools that are designed for young people should be developed by young people.”
One former intern, Adrian, reflected on the work, saying, “As a member of the QTBIPOC community, I remember vividly noticing a lack of a more comprehensive and inclusive education system. This is why trainings like the ones provided by PHE are so important, to not only make marginalized demographics feel seen, but to equip them with valuable and credible health education.” Another intern, Maria, commented that the experience enhanced her “ability to create health education materials that were both evidence-based and culturally inclusive.”
Lastly, PHE’s curriculum is informed by in-house evaluations and survey results from both students and health facilitators. The organization conducts nationwide pre and post testing for students in classrooms receiving Pathways or Centered curriculum, as well as hosts two annual virtual feedback sessions. These data collection methods aid in generating student-informed revisions that come directly from the over 15,000 young people who participate in the Peer Health Exchange curriculum.