At HealthCorps, not only do we work with teens to live healthier lifestyles — their families, schools, and local community get involved to sustain this positive culture of wellness!

In this episode of The Healthy Edit, HealthCorps Program Coordinators Mari Arandia and Erin Spillane share their experiences with connecting and nurturing healthier communities with the San Diego Unified High School District.

In order to support the health of their students, Mari and Erin first needed to encourage teachers and faculty to care for their own health — a challenge for many overwhelmed educators across the country. But with HealthCorps and SDUHSD's Wellness Council, schools now have empowered students, supported teachers, and local resources to live happier, healthier lives.

Special thank you to San Diego Unified High School District for supporting Teens Make Health Happen.

One goal for the HealthCorps team is making nutrition and food a passion for teens. Margarita Moran, our Program Coordinator in Oxnard, CA, has seen how that passion results in advocacy and positive health behaviors – particularly with her student, Lena, who joins her on this episode of The Healthy Edit.

Margarita and Lena reflect on food at home and in schools and the changes they are seeing through the HealthCorps program. They also discuss their entry for last year’s Project Health Showcase: Fresh Fridays, where Lena and her team work with local farmers to introduce new fruits and vegetables to their peers. Margarita and Lena are just one of the many near-peer mentorships that HealthCorps supports to champion teens to be the healthy change they want to see.

Special thank you to Oxnard Union High School District for supporting Teens Make Health Happen.

One of HealthCorps' values is empowerment in diversity, which reiterates our belief that the community members are the catalysts for change in their own communities.

Taneesha Watson and Eileen Carrell embody this value in our latest Healthy Edit episode, where they share how growing up in their respective tribes have allowed them to make unique impact on their communities through action and education with HealthCorps.

Special thank you to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona's Foundation for Community & Health Advancement for supporting Teens Make Health Happen.

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Welcome to the Healthy Edit! A podcast focused on — you guessed it — health and wellness, but from the perspective of HealthCorps, a national not-for-profit dedicated to teen wellness.

On this season of the Healthy Edit, you’ll be hearing directly from our staff, students, and other health advocates to discover the secret to what makes our wellness programming so impactful, inclusive, and sustainable and how you – just like our teens – can make health happen.

Welcome to the Healthy Edit! A podcast focused on — you guessed it — health and wellness, but from the perspective of HealthCorps, a national not-for-profit dedicated to teen wellness.

On this season of the Healthy Edit, you’ll be hearing directly from our staff, students, and other health advocates to discover the secret to what makes our wellness programming so impactful, inclusive, and sustainable and how you – just like our teens – can make health happen.

In our first episode, we meet Lindsey Maurice-Walker — former HealthCorps Coordinator and now Regional Program Manager in Oklahoma. She shares her passion for working with teens and how to inspire them to give back to their community. Her experience helps us understand why HealthCorps is dedicated to working with teens and what exactly makes these change-makers so powerful.

In this episode of Healthy Chats, HealthCorps CEO Amy Braun welcomes Jack D. Hidary a successful serial entrepreneur and leader in AI and Quantum Technologies.  Jack is currently the head of Sandbox, an Alphabet unit that focuses on AI and Quantum.   Jack is the author of Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach, a leading textbook in the field.

Jack is also the catalyst behind HealthCorps’ Save the Students campaign that delivered thousands of “health saving” kits to students across the country.  Each kit included a connected thermometer, masks and HealthCorps resources for the students and their families.

In September 2021, Jack will be among the honorees at HealthCorps’ annual benefit for his contributions to health and wellness.

It’s a fascinating conversation that explores the impact of AI and Quantum Computing on the future of healthcare, lessons learned from the pandemic and helping students reach their potential.

With the Tokyo Olympics right around the corner, what better way to usher in what will be non-traditional Olympic games, than with a conversation about mental strength, resilience and believing in yourself.

In this episode of Healthy Chats, HealthCorps CEO Amy Braun sits down with Board of Advisor member, the legendary Jackie Joyner-Kersee.  

Having been dubbed ‘The Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century’ by Sports Illustrated, Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s athletic accomplishments are literally second to none.  By the conclusion of her career in the heptathlon and long jump events she had amassed six Olympic medals (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze) and four World Champion titles over four consecutive Olympic Games. Jackie was the first woman in history to earn more than 7,000 points in the heptathlon and today, over 20 years later, she still holds the world heptathlon record of 7,291 points. She continues to hold the Olympic and national records in the long jump and her 1994 performance in the long jump remains the second longest in history.

Jackie came from very humble beginnings and describes her early home life as being full of love, principle and discipline.  These ingrained values have served Jackie well both on and off the field through her life.  She has been described by the sports media as one of the warmest, most even-tempered, grace-filled persons in all of athletics.

In 1988, Jackie established the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation as the vehicle through which she provides youth, adults and families with the resources to improve their quality of life, HealthCorps is proud to partner with her foundation and provide our programming to the teens it serves.

Her advice to all of us, young and old?  Believe in yourself.  

Never miss an episode of Healthy Chats by subscribing on your favorite platform and following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @healthcorps and on our teen channel @teenhealthvibe on Instagram.

Last summer, experts issued warnings that the mental health of our nation’s teachers could be impacted when school resumed. Those warnings appear to be playing out.  Teachers are reporting that their mental health is suffering in ways they have never experienced.  They are anxiety ridden and exhausted.  

For teachers who have been operating in crisis mode for well over a year – the constant unpredictability of school opening and closing, the isolation, a new host of challenges in reaching their students – whose mental health they also worry about, are only compounded by the stress of the pandemic the rest of the country feels.

May 3- 7, is teacher appreciation week, and May is mental health month. It’s only fitting that we have a conversation to recognize (and appreciate) the expanded role teachers have been asked to play during the pandemic and the toll their willingness to do whatever it takes for their students may be taking on their mental health.

Joining HealthCorps CEO, Amy Braun (herself and educator) to discuss causes and solutions as we prepare for a return to the classroom next year are Dr. Mark Goulston, a member of the HealthCorps Board of Advisors, a board-certified psychiatrist and author of Why Cope When You Can Heal – which was created for essential healthcare workers suffering from anxiety and depression as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic and Michelle Benedict, the director of USANA’s Kids Eat who through her work in feeding students, saw the impact of the pandemic on teachers in Salt Lake City and created a program to support them.

Please follow @healthcorps on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and for our teen programming go to @teenhealthvibe on Instagram.

As we open our second season of Healthy Chats, we have a bonus episode with a representative from CVS Health, which we’re very happy about as the CVS Health Foundation is one of our favorite partners.

In 2020, HealthCorps honored the CVS Health Foundation for its commitment to working in communities. We applauded CVS Health and its belief that everyone should have the opportunity to make healthy choices, regardless of the condition in which they are born, grow, live, work and age. The CVS Health Foundation provides strategic support to partners, like HealthCorps, that are helping to increase community-based access to health care for at-risk populations.

A year ago no one could have imagined what the next 300 days would hold for us.  But here we are, emerging from the pandemic with optimism fueled by hope and science.

CVS Health has remained on the front lines of our global battle with covid and it’s fitting that they are with us today to discuss how we can all engage to bring this chapter to an end.

In this bonus episode of Healthy Chats, Amy speaks with Dr. Ulises Perez, a chief medical officer and senior director of clinical solutions for CVS Health.  This episode was recorded when the fate of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was in limbo.  Spoiler alert, Dr. Perez predicted it would be back in use within a week.

Our bonus episode provides great insight into the different vaccines, why pharmacies are playing such an important role in vaccine distribution and the vaccines roll out to teens.

For more information about HealthCorps, please visit www.healthcorps.org  For more information about CVS Health and the CVS Foundation, go to www.cvshealth.com