Usher’s New Look (UNL)
Based in Atlanta, Usher’s New Look (UNL) is a unique leadership program that works with under-resourced youth during their formative years to set them up for a lifetime of success. Usher’s New Look (https://ushersnewlook.org) recognized the immediacy of the need to empower youth with health information and incorporated the HEAT Corps curriculum into their programs. HEAT Corps looks forward to expanding its partnership with UNL which will include utilizing student leaders as co-educators/facilitators in the program, developing peer-to-peer training and mentoring, establishing a certification program, and seeking joint funding opportunities.
Hopkins Summer 2020 Virtual Youth Engagement Program
In addition to our focus on partnering with schools, HEAT Corps partnered with organizations like Baltimore’s YouthWorks (https://youthworks.oedworks.com). YouthWorks, JHU’s summer jobs program, typically provides five-week job experiences across the Hopkins campuses. These students participated in a virtual program that included job readiness, career exploration, financial literacy, academic enrichment and skills training plus HEAT Corps sessions.
Town Halls
HEAT Corps has created a monthly town hall series, Hot Topics with HEAT, to address concerning health topics of today that are impacting the local school system, from teachers to students to parents. At the start of the pandemic, Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos was featured in two COVID-19 Town Halls at Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana centered around community health in indigenous communities. These initial town halls grew into our monthly series that has covered topics such as COVID-19, mental health, school safety and gun violence, electronic cigarette usage in youth, and more. They are moderated by HEAT Corps faculty, with Johns Hopkins experts as panelists (from physicians to nurses to scientists), and feature a “questions and answer” section, where the audience can have their questions answered live. All of our Town Halls can be viewed under our “In the News” tab.