Community Health Advocacy Project - Part Two

Community Health Advocacy Project- Part Two

NUR/544

September 10, 2012

Kelley Hawes

Community Health Advocacy Project- Part Two

A community is a group of people living in or around an area with a sense of belonging and common interests (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2010). An aggregate is a group or population that has some same characteristics or concerns within a community (Nies & McEwen, 2011). The difference between a community and an aggregate is that a community is a group with common interest whereas the aggregate is a subgroup within the community.

Teen sexual violence is an aggregate within a community discussed in this paper. Seventy five percent of sexual assault victims are between the ages of 12 and 24 with many of the offenders as youths themselves, "Teen victims of physical dating violence are more likely than their non-abused peers to smoke, use drugs, engage in unhealthy diet behaviors, engage in risky sexual behaviors and attempt or consider suicide" (Ramsey, et al., 2009). These issues are the reasons there is a need for advocacy.

Christoffel's Stages

Katherine Christoffel suggests a framework for the processes in health advocacy and likes to compare it to an "assembly line" (Christoffel, 2009, p. 1). The first stage is information gathering where journal articles and data reports are assembled so the advocate can identify, describe, and quantify the health problem. Second, is the strategy stage, in this stage the activities are identified that will be used to identify what needs to change to improve the issue. Number three is the action stage, where the changes in attitudes, beliefs, laws, etc., come into effect (Christoffel, 2009).

Action Plan

This action plan will be used to access the need for further services and prevention for victims of Teen Sexual Violence. Teens experience high rates of severe intimate partner violence, rape and stalking, and long-term chronic disease and other mental health issues such as PTSD symptoms. According to "The National Intimate Partner And Sexual Violence Survey " (2011), "Statistics show that most rape and intimate partner violence is first experienced before age 24, stressing the importance of preventing this violence before it occurs making sure that all people can live life without fear and to their potential" (p. 1).

Information

As health care providers the first plan of action will be to identify the needed data regarding teen sexual violence from research already done, patterns of occurrence from what is seen by the Sexual Assault Care Unit of the county, prevention measures, and barriers to resources.

The information stage will involve talking to the community and gathering data from other medical professionals to determine the problem of teen sexual violence in the community. This action will lead into developing a strategy for change.

Strategy

The information gathered from the first stage of the action plan will be made good use of by meeting with school board presidents and teachers so each will