Justice students honored for health project
A team from Justice High School won an award for “best group project” in the Fairfax County Health Department’s Youth Ambassadors program.
Justice students Brenda Ferrufino-Cruz and Connor Morgan’s project was a plan to increase awareness of the early signs of a stroke.
Seventeen students – from John Lewis and Mount Vernon high schools, as well as Justice – traveled to Georgetown University to present their community health projects to faculty at the School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine.
The event was the final competition for students in the Youth Ambassador program, which teaches students in grades 10-12 about community health issues while exposing them to career options in healthcare.
Connor said he chose a project on stroke awareness “so no other family has to suffer like I did when I practically lost my uncle.”
“My uncle had a stroke, but no one around him ever noticed that he was actually having a stroke. He was told to just sit down and go back to work,” Connor said. Later, he was rushed to the ER, and now, “he’s just different behaviorally and emotionally.”
Related story: Justice students learn about health careers at Inova Fairfax Hospital
Roxana Melanie Pineda Serrano from Mount Vernon High School won in the “best individual project” category for her presentation on food security and access to affordable, healthy food.
Other students’ projects addressed bipolar depression among students, language barriers in healthcare, sleep deprivation among teens, and early detection of Alzheimer’s.
Youth Ambassadors must complete a community health project to graduate from the program. Participants selected a health issue that is relevant to them and created an actionable plan on how to address it. Among the criteria for evaluation, the student projects were judged on originality, cultural relevance, and feasibility.
After two rounds of preliminary judging by subject matter experts at the Health Department, 17 students advanced to the final round.
Dr. Michelle Roett, chair of the Department of Family Medicine and the lead judge on the panel, said the students’ presentations were “absolutely inspirational.”
“I loved to hear the energy and see the hard work that the students put into their projects. I wish I could have had an opportunity like this when I was in high school,” Roett said.
Throughout the year, Georgetown med students met with and coached the Youth Ambassadors and provided in-class instruction on medical topics.
For students interested in joining the program in the 2025-26 school year, applications should be available in August for the fall cohort and in December for the spring cohort.
