Promising Practice Conference

The Promising Practice Workshop was held in November 7, 2015 at Donovan Dinning Hall in Rhode Island College campus.  In attendance were educators, social workers, teachers, students and myself.  It was a bit boring but very educative.

The boring part was the long Keynote address by Dr. Alexander Scott, Director of Rhode Island College Department of Health.  Dr. Scott's address was an hour long, mostly on specific health related topics.  She was in charge the entire hour presenting her power point in which to me became boring.  Through her address I pictured a Kozol moment where families with low-income suffered mainly issues like drugs and diseases.  In power point, she did showed the statistics of  the increase in teenage pregnancy, HIV Aids and Drug Abuse being high in Rhode Island State among low income families.  Few questions were allowed after.

My first workshop was Assessing Teaching Confidence and Proficiency with Sexual Health Education Standards.  It introduced a study by one professor in Rhode Island College who set up questionnaire on how Sex Education should be taught in schools to all school nurses, physical educators, health educators in Rhode Island Schools.  According to statistics shown, the response was very poor, many refused to complete the questionnaire because they felt uncomfortable discussing the topic.  I did not learn much, just the figures of who was interested and who was not.  August explains that if we officially acknowledge the roles of LBGT individuals in the development of this country, harmfully stereotypes that have contributed to recent suicide attribute to antigay bullying.  I believe we should all created safe space for everyone.

The second workshop was Changing Lives Through Collaboration.  The main concept of the workshop was on how health workers in New England with addiction issues could get resources to overcome their fear and became better people to the society.  It was a small piece but very informative.