Creative Life Course & Life

PlanningPromotion Activities

Anne DeCaire BSN, RNadecaire@marchofdimes.comPreconception Nurse Educator

Life Course

• Life Course looks at health as an integrated continuum and suggests that a complex interplay of biological, behavioral, psychological, social, and environmental factors contribute to health outcomes across the course of a person's life. It builds on recent social science and public health literature that posits that each life stage influences the next and that social, economic, and physical environments interacting across the life course have a profound impact on individual and community health.

• http://mchb.hrsa.gov/lifecourse/index.html

The Life Course Game

•2012 DHMIC Summit featured the Life Course Board Game•In the Life Course Game, participants are led through an interactive experience, designed to illustrate key concepts of the life course framework. Specifically, participants receive birth certificates at the start of the game that identify socially- and biologically-based historical factors that help determine their course in life. As they work their way through the game board, each person's roll of the dice identifies risk factors and protective factors that either push down or lift up their overall health trajectory and life course. The game concludes with each player rolling the dice a final time to determine their end-of-life outcomes (retirement projections, years-of-life remaining, etc.)•The Life Course Game was created and developed by CityMatCH

Life Planning

•Thinking about your goals for having or not having children and how to achieve those goals is called a reproductive life plan. There are many kinds of reproductive life plans. Your plan will depend on your personal goals and dreams.

• http://www.cdc.gov/preconception/reproductiveplan.html

Life Planning – Preconception Health

• Delaware Reproductive Life Plans ’s (RLP)• Teen – My Life My Plan• Woman – Set Your Mind. Set Your Goals• Man Up Plan Up

• CDC Resources

• Before Beyond and Between

Every Encounter

• We need to be sure to incorporate our messaging of Life Planning and Life Course Theory into every client encounter we have.

•Examples

7 Creative Ways to Make the Messaging Meaningful

• Language• Imagery• Fun• Fitness• Food• Connecting Generations• Get Social

Creative Uses of Language

Written Examples

Verbal Examples

Spanish

Imagery

• Delaware RLP Images• Qualities• Industry Images• Drawing• Pinterest

FUN!

• Teens and Adults learn when the messaging is incorporated into activity

• Interactive Session featuring Preconception Peer Educator• M&M Game• The Dating Game• Life Sized Life Course

Life Sized – Life Course Game

• Life Course Game that includes physical component and puts the players on the board, literally!

•Each person's health and well-being reflects the cumulation of their own unique prior history.

• --Kotelchuck M. Building on a life-course perspective in maternal and child health. Matern Child Health J. 2003; 7:5-11

• credit to EveryWoman Southeast for originally featuring the Life Sized Life Course in 2012

Fitness

• Make them move while sending across the messageExamples:

Food!

• Eating and celebrating with food sets a tone for building community and a positive experience• Examples

Connecting Generations

• Genetics - Family Tree• Educating Generations Together

Get Social & Get Into Social Media

• Group Instruction and Events build community and energy around the topic

• Social Media allows us to engage without barriers of geography, time, generation…• Facebook Groups – Statewide Preconception Peer Educator

Training• Twitter – DE Thrives• Pinterest – Create a board related to your topic or interests of

your group

• Youtube - Healthiest Nation in 1 Generation Life Course Video

•-http://www.everywomanwi.org/healthiest-nation-in-one-generation-video.html

Don’t Reinvent - Incorporate

•To incorporate Delaware Life Planning and Life Course Theory into existing curriculum

•Examples

Next Steps

1. Join the PCHHC Newsletter

2. Join DE THRIVES on Facebook and Twitter