Strategies

Match disadvantaged or at-risk youth with volunteer mentors in school or community settings

Help high school students prepare for college, complete applications, and enroll, especially first-generation applicants and students from families with low incomes

Combine academic, mental and physical health, and social service resources in schools for students and families via partnerships with community organizations; also called community learning centers

Recruit and train underrepresented minority (URM) students for careers in health fields via information about health careers, classes, practicum experiences, advising about college or medical school admissions, etc.

Organize workers to bargain collectively for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions

Delay school start times for middle and high schools to better align with adolescent sleep-wake cycles; often until 8:30 a.m. or later

Use regulation to extend nurse practitioners’ (NPs’) scope of practice to provide care to the full scope of their training and skills without physician oversight, especially for primary care

Teach positively stated behavior expectations to all students, often reinforced with prizes or privileges and supported with coaching and data

Make clinician, hospital, clinic, long-term care facility, and insurance plan performance on health care quality measures publicly available via report cards, reporting websites, or similar tools

Require school officials to apply predetermined consequences for certain infractions, regardless of situational context or circumstances; consequences are usually severe (e.g., suspension or expulsion)