Youth Caregiver Trainings & Resources

Hult Center for Healthy Living offers a variety of educational programming, professional development/training opportunities, and resources for parents and caregivers.

To inquire about an education program or training opportunity call (309) 692-6650 or…

Hult Center for Healthy Living Caregiver Trainings

Below are programs that we frequently offer, but we can customize workshops and trainings to fit your needs.


Healthy Minds, Healthy Neighborhoods

Launched in 2016, Healthy Minds, Healthy Neighborhoods is part of the ‘Heart of Illinois United Way’s S3 Initiative’.

With more than 20 community partners, Healthy Minds, Healthy Neighborhoods provides neighborhood-based educational sessions addressing five key areas of social-emotional health for parents/caregivers of pre-kindergarten, elementary, and high school age youth.

The ability to manage my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in my home, school, and community.

The ability to make healthy and safe choices in my home, school, and community.

The ability to recognize my feelings and their influence on my behavior in my home, school, and community.

The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships in my home, school, and community.

The ability to get along with others in my home, school, and community.


This training is possible thanks to Heart of Illinois United Way, Community Foundation of Central Illinois, City of Peoria Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and our annual fundraiser, Whitney’s Walk for Life.

Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR)

QPR is a 2-hour evidence-based training that teaches individuals how to:

  • Question, Persuade, and Refer someone who exhibit suicidal ideations or show signs of personal harm.
  • Seek help and attain resources for yourself and learn more about preventing suicide.

Also teaches:

  • The common causes of suicidal behavior.
  • The warning signs of suicide.
  • How to get help for someone in crisis.

Youth Mental Health First Aid

This is a program that is designed to teach parents, family members, caregivers, teachers, school staff, peers, neighbors, health and human services workers, and other caring citizens how to help an adolescent(s) (ages 12-18) who is experiencing challenges related to a mental health crises or addiction.

Introduces:

  • Commonly experienced and manifested mental health challenges for youth.
  • Timeline of typical adolescent development.
  • A five-step action plan for how to help young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations.

Topics covered include:

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Substance use
  • Disorders in which psychosis may occur
  • Disruptive behavior disorders including (AD/HD)
  • Eating disorders

Marijuana Resource Page:

Marijuana use is the hot new topic! The resource page provides more information on what makes marijuana so enticing for users, the health risks associated with usage, and data to illuminate its usage in the Tri-County region.

Sexual and Reproductive Health

Let’s Talk!

Workshops to help parents, caregivers, and those who work with teens to be able to talk about sexual health along with the various topics and questions that fall underneath it.

These workshops cover a lot of topic areas which include:

  • When to have the conversation
  • How to have the conversation
  • Easy communication skills to talk to your teen about:
    • Puberty
    • Sex
    • Birth control
    • Condoms
    • Sexual orientation & gender identity
    • Unhealthy relationships
    • Emotions/feelings
    • & MORE!

This program can be adapted and tailored to fit the specific needs/desires of participants.

Additional Youth & Adolescent Health Resources

Local Resources For Overall Health

Every day, individuals go without essential services while help is readily available.

The Heart of Illinois United Way and Advanced Medical Transport of Central Illinois partner to provide Heart of Illinois 2-1-1, a comprehensive information and referral line to connect callers to critical health and human care programs.

CFPA is the only agency in the entire state sanctioned to provide its combined services of Domestic Violence, Sexual Abuse/Assault, Human Trafficking, Adult Protective Services, and Prevention Education under one roof.

CFPA operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and all victim services are free and confidential.

Central Illinois Friends provides a community for individuals living with HIV, as well as transportation, rent, utilities, and emergency services.

They also provide free & confidential HIV and STI Screenings, HPV vaccinations, PrEP, education, and/or referral services. For more information on all of our services, scroll down!

The Children’s Home Association of Illinois provides community support services to at-risk youth, the people who love and care for them, and the people who no longer can.

Good Beginnings is a prenatal and postpartum home visiting program that provides services and support to qualified first-time and second-time moms in Peoria and Tazewell counties.

The Heart of Illinois United Way is the largest non-governmental investor in local health and human care programs in central Illinois, our United Way serves Peoria, Tazewell, Woodford, Marshall, Stark and Putnam counties.

UnityPlace is proud to offer you and your family the most comprehensive addiction and mental health services in central Illinois. 

The oldest and largest park district in Illinois, the Peoria Park District encompasses nearly 60 square miles.  The value we provide to the community can be found in the ease of access to our parks and recreational programs.

In Illinois, if you have eaten at a restaurant … required hospital or nursing home care … vacationed at a campground or swam at a public beach or pool … drank a glass of milk … got married or divorced … had a baby, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has touched your life in some important way.

As part of our efforts, we founded KidsHealth.org in 1995. Since then, KidsHealth’s articles, videos, animations, print publications, and health instructions have had billions of visits. KidsHealth.org is the most-viewed site for dependable information on children’s health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.


Mental Health Resources

The purpose of the American Association of Suicidology is to prevent suicide and better understand its causes, while supporting those who have been affected by it.

Established in 1987, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is a voluntary health organization that gives those affected by suicide a nationwide community empowered by research, education and advocacy to take action against this leading cause of death.

The American Psychiatric Association is to be the premier psychiatric organization that advances mental health as part of general health and well-being.

CDC is the nation’s leading science-based, data-driven, service organization that protects the public’s health. For more than 70 years, we’ve put science into action to help children stay healthy so they can grow and learn; to help families, businesses, and communities fight disease and stay strong; and to protect the public’s health.

Much of MHA’s work is guided by its Before Stage 4 (B4Stage4) philosophy – that mental health conditions should be treated long before they reach the most critical points in the disease process. When we think about diseases like cancer or heart disease, we don’t wait years to treat them.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. NIMH is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest biomedical research agency in the world. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

NAMI works to educate, support, advocate, listen and lead to improve the lives of people with mental illness and their loved ones.

StopBullying.gov coordinates closely with the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Steering Committee, an interagency effort co-led by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services that works to coordinate policy, research, and communications on bullying topics.

Click this link to visit Mental Health America’s resources- Parent Test: Your Child’s Mental Health – MHA Screening (mhanational.org)

Reproductive Health

Advocates for Youth partners with youth leaders, adult allies, and youth-serving organizations to advocate for policies and champion programs that recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health information; accessible, confidential, and affordable sexual health services; and the resources and opportunities necessary to create sexual health equity for all youth.

AMAZE strives to assist adults—parents, guardians, educators and health care providers around the globe—to communicate effectively and honestly about sex and sexuality with the children and adolescents in their lives.

We are dedicated to the prevention of sexually transmitted infections through information and support services and public policy activities. Our work is focused around three important areas—education, collaboration, and advocacy.

Bedsider.org (Bedsider) is an online birth control support network for women 18-29 operated by Power to Decide, the campaign to prevent unplanned pregnancy. Power to Decide works to ensure that every young person has the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant—increasing their opportunity to pursue the future they want.

CyberWise is a resource site for BUSY grownups seeking to help youth use tech safely and wisely.

Love is Respect is the national resource to disrupt and prevent unhealthy relationships and intimate partner violence by empowering young people through inclusive and equitable education, support, and resources.

Founded in 1973, PFLAG is the first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families. PFLAG’s network of hundreds of chapters and more than 325,000 members and supporters works to create a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.

At Planned Parenthood our mission is to ensure all people have access to the care and resources they need to make informed decisions about their bodies, their lives, and their futures.

Scarleteen is an online resource that provides inclusive, comprehensive, and supportive sexuality and relationships info for teens and emerging adults.

Online resource that provides trainings on how to have open & honest conversations that will guide your child as they grow up, and strengthen your relationship without feeling embarrassed, awkward or nervous.

We work to ensure that all young people—no matter who they are, where they live, or what their economic status might be—have the power to decide if, when, and under what circumstances to get pregnant and have a child. We do this by increasing information, access, and opportunity. 

The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning) young people.

Physical Activity and Nutrition

We help create healthier schools by bringing all the members of a school community together and equipping them with the tools and resources they need to make change happen.

The benefits of healthy eating add up over time, bite by bite. Small changes matter. Start Simple with MyPlate.

Nutrition.gov is a USDA-sponsored website that offers credible information to help you make healthful eating choices. It serves as a gateway to reliable information on nutrition, healthy eating, physical activity, and food safety for consumers. .

Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) serves as the voice for 200,000+ health and physical education professionals across the United States. The organization’s extensive community includes a diverse membership of health and physical educators, as well as advocates, supporters, and 50+ state affiliate organizations.

Team Nutrition is an initiative of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to support the child nutrition programs through training and technical assistance for foodservice, nutrition education for children and their caregivers, and school and community support for healthy eating and physical activity.

Substance Use

Online resource created by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that provides comprehensive on various recreational, illegal, and addictive drugs.

The NIDA mission is to advance science on the causes and consequences of drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities.

The nation’s leading organization dedicated to addiction prevention, treatment and recovery, we are a diverse community of researchers, advocates, clinicians, communicators and more.

If you would like to inquire about any training opportunities, have any questions, or want additional resources contact our team by calling (309) 692-6650 or

Hult Healthy
Hult Healthy