Read what clients are saying about the Healthy Kids Survey...
Receive Valuable Services and Reports"I have been very pleased with the responsiveness of the HKS office, the quick turnaround for materials, and the very helpful staff there... The data analysis reports that we receive are excellent! We have used them extensively with the district coordinator group, management, and in a report to the [School] Board." --Empire Union School District
"You have done all the hard work for us and for very little money, compared to other surveys! The financial investment in the CHKS is also a real statement that the California Department of Education cares about preventing and intervening in ATOD use with our youth. Please keep up the good work with your eyes on the future. We will have passed...to a new time, when prevention programs are biennially evaluated and given respect for their contribution to education along with academic subjects." --Irvine USD
Identify Local Needs
"One of the districts in our county administered the survey last year. A red flag went up regarding suicide ideation and attempts by those young kids [7th graders]. They never had middle school counselors before, but they do now." --Ventura County Office of Education
"The HKS data was showing a lot of binge drinking, and drinking and driving. At the same time, the police were encountering a lot of parties with underage drinking. They would break up the parties and the teens would go home, some of them driving. The school district went to the police to see what they could do about this. The police department changed their policies in breaking up parties. They now break up parties but call parents to come and pick up their children." --Pleasanton Unified School District
Raise Local Awareness and Program Support
"This information has given the district a clear understanding of their own responsibility and prompted action, rather than reading numbers for the state or the national survey results. The HKS greatly increases district capacity to sponsor effective programs." --Ventura County Medical Center, evaluator for the school health programs
"The whole issue of communicating these findings is just beginning; without it, our districts/communities will just hear about [state or national] surveys on prevalence/use, and it will be someone else's kids, not theirs. Now, we are looking at our kids." --Santa Barbara County Office of Education
Promote School-Community Collaboration
"Planning and implementing the HKS provided the impetus for the development of true school-community collaboration for the first time... and enthusiasm for the resilience assessment played an important role." --Contra Costa County Office of Education
Instructional Value
"We used the HKS Core with middle school students who are taking a Wellness education class. The teacher reports the survey questions to stimulate discussion, so there is instructional value." --Ventura County Medical Center, evaluator for the school health programs
Data-Driven Decision Making and Program Evaluation
"The County Substance Abuse Advisory Board wants to work with our schools to design collaborative, needs-driven, school-based prevention programs. What better way to achieve this than the HKS! We have, for the first time, the data to determine our needs and to design our prevention programs." --Contra Costa County Substance Abuse Advisory Board
"The data we receive in the next round will be invaluable in measuring the success of the programs we are now implementing as a result of the needs identified in the first report. How else will we measure success and seek improvement? The district is determined to use HKS data to drive programs. We can't generate this type of data ourselves." --Alvord Unified School District
Resilience & Youth Development
"The data from the [RYDM] will help us focus on the positive and measure strengths. Too often we highlight the negative issues and write policies that punish, and don't focus on the wonderful strengths that youth possess and then reward. I am very proud to be a part of this innovative work. We have a true collaborative effort." --Contra Costa County Substance Abuse Advisory Board