City Year Pilot Concludes with Great Results

Testimonials

“Road of Life’s innovative programs have a very important role to play in keeping some of America’s most at-risk communities healthy.”

– Laurel Shoaff-Tranick, Program Manager for the Corporation for National and Community Service

“This program is easy for our teachers to integrate the curricula in their classrooms. Due to the fact that the classroom curriculum is aligned to National Health Standards as well as State Academic Standards, teachers do not have to veer away from teaching the required core academic subjects of math, English language arts, social studies, and science.”

– Mary G. Maul, Principal of Scranton K-8 School in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in OH

“Road of Life is a unique and exciting organization. ROL takes the idea of cancer prevention a few steps further and tries to establish good lifestyle choices and habits with children, long before they are potentially faced with a cancer diagnosis. I believe in ROL because of their unique ability to pull resources from different sources, such as the medical community, the public health community, and the education community.”

– Sharon E. Kim, Clinical Research Coordinator at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center

“I believe the ROL program is a worthy effort that will make a positive difference in the lives of children.”

– Karen L. Gilliam, Ph.D. Manager of the Office of Diversity at The MetroHealth System

“I was speechless when I came across the Road of Life website. I am thrilled that the lessons are available to our school for free. The lessons are extremely interactive, encouraging all students to participate. They also cross several subject areas, not just health.”

– Agatha Kusenda, Guidance Counselor at Brainerd Baptist School in Chattanooga, TN

“We are confident that the Road of Life Program will help improve the knowledge and build awareness of health for children in Cleveland.”

– Eileen Korey, Vice President of Communications at The MetroHealth System

“Road of Life focuses on educating children on fitness, nutrition, and overall good decision making that will lead to healthier lives and greatly reduce the risk of developing cancer later in life. We recognize the work that ROL is doing and we want to help ROL create an Adolescent and Young Adult specific program to expand ROL’s program to this age group. We look forward to working with ROL..."

– John J. Letterio, M.D., Chief of the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital

“We support Road of Life because of its great work against a dreadful disease. We believe that ROL will impact the knowledge of health for children everywhere.”

– Jack Staph, Executive Director of the Cleveland Marathon, Half Marathon & 10K

“By providing this information to children, we are teaching them that they are not only responsible for their personal health but in the future they can choose to be responsible for helping others become healthier. The sheer diversity of each curriculum demonstrates ROL’s ability to solve the main problem of chronic illness.”

– Denisha E. Garland, MPH, SIT with the Cincinnati Health Department

“In the past, I have always had a difficult time incorporating a health curriculum into the classroom. With so many standards to meet in the core subjects like Math, Reading, and Writing, Health curriculums often get pushed to the side. However, the Road of Life health curriculum has changed that in my classroom.”

– Kimberly Frank, 4^th grade teacher at Tanque Verde Elementary School in Tucson, AZ

“All the lessons in the After School Program were easy to use and integrate into our current programs. The kids loved learning lessons while enjoying the activities; the facilitators loved the user-friendly content. After using Road of Life’s programs, the children experienced an increase in knowledge through education, a change in attitude through awareness and exposure, and a change in behavior through action and performance.”

– Lisa Palmer, Executive Director for the Olde Southside Community Partnership

“I am a very strong advocate of the Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids program and the innovative work they have done with Columbus Public Schools.”

– Andrew Ginther, Columbus City Council (Former Columbus Public School Board Member)

“Road of Life improves the health knowledge of all students that are involved in the program. We even featured their work in the College’s Annual Report Magazine.”

– Lori Bolton, Assistant Director for the Practice Education and Career Services in The Ohio State University College of Public Health

For the Media

City Year Pilot Concludes with Great Results

Program News

Written by Press Release

Friday, 29 February 2008 00:00

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Road of Life’s 12-week pilot program with City Year Columbus concluded January 26th, showing very encouraging results for the Road of Life curriculum. The Road of Life cancer prevention curriculum proved effective in imparting valuable health information and changing student perceptions of at-risk behavior.

In the partnership with City Year Columbus—the local affiliate of a national mentoring organization—Road of Life’s curriculum was taught by City Year’s mentors during their after-school programs at the elementary and middle school levels, in Hubbard Elementary and Linmoor Middle School

This pilot program, like the first Columbus pilot program in 2004-2005, was a stage for Road of Life to evaluate and improve its program, based on the results of student tests and teacher reviews. The data was analyzed by program Road of Life’s evaluator Robin Bryski, who determined that the curriculum had helped the students make astonishing gains in their knowledge of lifesaving health concepts.

For example: after 9 weeks of the Road of Life curriculum, testing showed a 40% increase in student knowledge that smoking makes it harder to succeed at sports, and a 26% increase in the number of students who reported eating fruits and vegetables every day.

Road of Life’s curriculum provides the cognitive and factual tools kids need to make good lifestyle choices. Teaching students to understand the importance of nutrition, exercise, and a tobacco-free life, Road of Life’s cancer-prevention curriculum helps students establish healthy habits early to avoid cancer later in life.

Says Cheryl Grice, Executive Director of City Year Columbus, “The pilot was a success… the curriculum [was] well-designed and simple to implement in a classroom setting. The lessons effectively engaged students at all grade levels. The students demonstrated improved knowledge of healthy behaviors as a result of the program.” Road of Life is now looking forward to distributing the cancer prevention curriculum to children at a larger and more diverse array of sites, where, says Grice, “I am confident that similar results could be achieved.”

See Road of Life newsletter article Road of Life Announces Open Source Initiative to learn how the organization will take its curriculum to children across the U.S. in the coming year.

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