LifeLab is a co-designed health literacy intervention aiming to improve the health knowledge, choices and behaviour of Irish teenagers. We work with young people, teachers, researchers and health professionals. The focus is working with young people aged 12-16 years old, which represents the age cohort of ‘Junior Cycle’ within the Irish Education System. We work with students by facilitating workshops and SPHE classes with them, educating them on different elements of wellbeing. In Irish schools the ‘Wellbeing Programme’ describes key skills, elements and indicators, and mandates minimum hours of curriculum delivery, and this curriculum delivery includes Physical Education (PE), Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE), and Social, Personal, and Health Education (SPHE). The aim and purpose of LifeLab aligns naturally with the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) plan. While its initial development LifeLab Dublin focused its work with the cohort of schools involved in the Irish Heart Foundation’s broader national adolescent health literacy project, it has since expanded to work with a much broader range of DEIS schools throughout the region. Links are also now being formed with other community organisations, to support access for non-school attenders, and beyond Dublin. LifeLab is a co-designed (with teachers, young people, and health professionals) health literacy intervention aiming to improve the health knowledge, choices and behaviour of disadvantaged Irish teenagers.
