St. Louis Park and Champlin high schoolers teach younger students about commercial tobacco and nicotine
High school students in St. Louis Park and Champlin are helping younger peers understand the risks of commercial tobacco and nicotine. During the 2025–2026 school year, myHealth Teen Clinic trained more than 30 high school students as peer educators. They learned about the harms of vaping, how the tobacco and nicotine industry targets youth, and where to find support for quitting.
After completing their training, the peer educators visited St. Louis Park Middle School and Jackson Middle School to teach commercial tobacco and nicotine awareness lessons in every sixth grade health class. In total, they reached more than 850 students.
St. Louis Park peer educators teaching at St. Louis Park Middle School, May 2026
Image credit: Claire Weiss, myHealth Teen Clinic
About peer education
Peer‑to‑peer education is especially powerful for young people. In St. Louis Park and Champlin, middle schoolers were empowered when they saw high school peer educators who looked like them leading the lessons. This included students of color, especially Black and Somali students. Many wanted to know how to get involved and continue learning from their older peers.
myHealth Teen Clinic used a shame‑free, harm‑reduction approach when training the high school educators. When a staff member suggested the goal was to tell middle schoolers never to vape, one peer educator gently corrected them, explaining that the peer educators were not there to tell students what to do with their bodies or scare them. They were there to give accurate health information and help them think through their values so they can make informed choices. This approach supports young people’s agency in their own decision‑making and resonated strongly with students.
Partnerships make prevention possible
Support from Hennepin County Public Health, Minnesota Department of Health’s Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP), and Youth E-cigarette Prevention and Cessation Initiative made this work possible. Because of these partnerships, more young people in Hennepin County have the knowledge, confidence, and support they need to make healthy decisions about commercial tobacco and nicotine, now and in the future.