Strong Youth Strong Communities
Centene invests in today’s youth as a way to impact the health of current and future communities. As the “Official Youth Wellness Partner of the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Centene, along with our health plans and the Centene Foundation, have partnered with the PFHOF. This partnership helps teens identify tools and strategies to address the many issues they face today.
The Strong Youth Strong Communities (SYSC) initiative brings teenagers together to learn lessons on life skills and leadership that help unlock their potential. PFHOF members who support SYSC work with students to promote active thinking, sound judgment and to enable them to connect with positive role models, leaders and mentors in their communities.
Components of the Centene/PFHOF Partnership include:
Strong Youth Strong Communities provides a platform for Pro Football Hall of Famers to share stories and connect with students across the nation. Watch how SYSC events bring resources and moments of inspiration, reminding students to not let their current circumstances dictate their future, but instead be motivated by where they want to be.
Unlocking Potential
Hall of Famers who support SYSC, including Aeneas Williams, Darrell Green and Anthony Muñoz, and former UNC Women’s Basketball player Iman McFarland, use role-playing exercises to interact with students at the SYSC summits. Each lesson promotes active thinking and sound judgment that kids can apply in their daily lives. In addition to youth summits, SYSC offers young people digital resources via web and mobile applications.
SYSC has held 40 Youth Summits in communities across the country, engaging more than 16,000 youth in person, 22,000 through “virtual” Summits, and more than one million youth through social media. Each time, Centene has teamed up with local partners that engage local leaders and mentors from the community to work with teens.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, SYSC held virtual summits on coping with isolation and youth suicide prevention. Key partners, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, National Alliance on Mental Illness, school systems, local health plans, and the Offices of the Governor in Ohio and New Hampshire were integral to these efforts. The PFHOF live streamed and promoted the virtual events on social media resulting in nearly 40,000 views.
"Our country’s youth face numerous mental health challenges, including those stemming from the pandemic. It’s important to empower today’s students so they can best handle these challenges, lead healthy lives, and support their peers.”
-Darrell Green, Pro Football Hall of Famer
The SYSC summits serve as a starting point for our health plans to use the connections and goodwill created with our local partner organizations to address the needs of youth and families in their communities. In Nevada, this has led to initiatives with RISE Homes (Clark County) to provide services that address housing and food insecurity and the impact of physical and mental health disparities. In North Carolina, this led to a pilot program with Robeson County and the Lumbee Tribe to engage with the youth about the support resources that are available to them in moments of crisis, especially for mental health. Programs like these, and the dozens of others that were born from the SYSC’s visits, are empowering community leaders, schools and families to better support the wellbeing of our children.