Teen Advocates For Prevention (TAP) was born out of a collaborative federal grant, initiated by EQL, and funded through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Other partners included Community Partners In Better Health and over 30 faith-based organizations who came together to implement the evidence based program Becoming A Responsible Teen (BART) to reduce teen pregnancy and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The Focus. The success of this EQL envisioned project spawned interest in adolescents and teen focused organizations to learn more about other diseases impacting individuals and communities and led to the creation of Teen Advocates For Prevention – a health education program led by teens and designed to help their peers in making healthy decisions.

The Curriculum. Teens throughout Clark County learn about TAP and commit to a 30+ hour comprehensive Teen Health Peer Educator training sampling many healthy teen promotion curriculum – the majority of which are evidence based. The youth focus on a variety of topics ranging from diabetes in teens, healthy eating strategies, fun-filled forms of physical activity, male and female anatomy, the reproductive system, developing healthy relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and communication skills. After mastering the healthy teen content (over an eight-week period) future TAP youth practice the art of teaching and conducting engaging activities with EQL Experts.

The Future. Once obtaining the coveted “TAP Peer Educator Certificate” TAP students co-teach the classes with EQL Experts at various sites in the community.

Support. To support efforts for TAP Teens to provide programming for youth, or to have TAP youth participate in an EQL workshop for your organization, please send your inquiry below or contact the EQL training team contracted for this project via our contact us form.