Health Education hosts UWG’S 2021 Healthy & Safe Spring Break Week

Health Education brought excitement back to UWG’s campus by hosting the 2021 Healthy and Safe Spring Break Week. Every year UWG has a Healthy and Safe Spring Break Week to give students tips on how to stay safe during their time away from campus.

“We plan to target specific healthy behaviors that will be prevalent during spring break,” said Health Education Graduate Assistant, Jacquelyn Stubenraugh. “We collaborate with the Office of Community Standards to ensure we are giving the students all the information they need to stay safe and responsible during spring break.”

For the first four days of March, Health Education and the Office of Community Standards hosted different events that promote health and safety. On Monday, March 1, Health Education and OSC hosted a social media campaign called Caught Red Handed. The purpose of this event was to recognize the students they saw practicing and following healthy behavior.

“Our peer educators went around campus with a big red foam hand and found students who were engaging in healthy behaviors for the social media campaign,” said Stubenraugh. “We posted each student to shout them out for following through on healthy behavior.”

On Tuesday, March 2, Health Education and OSC set up a table in the Campus Center Lobby that focused on alcohol awareness. The purpose of the event was to show students what constitutes a drink, alcohol poisoning signs and how to safely consume alcohol.

“We focused on bystander intervention and walked students through scenarios and talked about how to intervene, different types of intervention and resources on campus that could help,” said Stubenraugh.

Health Education and OSC had a table in the TLC lobby about spring break safety on Wednesday, March 3. It focused on COVID-19’s practices, sun safety and alcohol awareness.

“OSC discussed the student code of conduct and how that may affect you even if you are not on campus,” said Stubenraugh. “They will also be talking about safety precautions students can take while on spring break.”

Thursday, March 4, Health Education and OSC had a drunk driving simulation called Arrive Alive. OSC provided mocktails and talked to the students about the overall safety regarding drinking and driving. The students were also able to see how it would feel to be driving while under the influence as they stepped inside the simulator.

“Students tend to enjoy Arrive Alive the most,” said Stubenraugh. “It is extremely interactive and has a lot of good information to accompany it.”

Health Education wanted to host the 2021 Healthy and Safe Spring Break Week, but also keep into the consideration of the students who are not comfortable attending events during a pandemic. However, they believed hosting these events were essential because they felt students need tips on how to stay safe during spring break.

“We decided to host these events because helping even one student is worth it,” said Stubenraugh. “During our planning stages we talked and considered COVID-19 and how to keep our peers and students safe while also supplying safety information.

“We encourage students to participate but we also understand students may be uncomfortable,” continued Stubenraugh. “We have started including handouts to give so students can just grab them as they walk by, so they are still getting the information with little person-to-person interaction.”