A Church, University, and Extension: A Partnership for Creating Healthy Youth and Healthy Living

Within many urban communities, there has been a steady decline in healthy living practices among minority families. This decline is often due to the lack of health services and health knowledge of youth and adults (Shirley, Roark, & Lewis, 2012). In order to better reach these particular audiences it has been suggested by scholars and practitioners to focus on community based programming. Partnerships formed through entities such as universities and community organizations have been shown to be quite successful in creating healthier families. This paper discusses one such program focused on increasing health knowledge of urban families. Activities offered included health screenings and healthy living programming for youth. Program results showed that nearly 95% of youth found the activities informative and gave them ways to think about their health and the health of their families.