RE Log Spring 2022

SPRING 2022 Ransom Everglades LOG 15 Joined by Charlotte (Joseph) Cassel ’03 , HIP’s Director of Partnerships, Berrin made a visit to the upper school campus in late December and met with some of RE’s HIP leaders after school. In its sixth year at Ransom Everglades, HIP has been a resounding success; it was an RE student who told Berrin that “HIP has made it cool to be nice.” “The best part is being with the kids,” Berrin said. “You can tell how proud they are of the work they are doing. The kids feel so empowered. They are so happy that adults have given them that trust to be part of the solution.” Launching HIP The way Berrin describes it, she “reluctantly” founded HIP in 2009, propelled more by a sense of duty and pangs of conscience than by any spirit of entrepreneurship: She had become convinced that science-based health and wellness education was critical, and that the peer-to-peer model of teaching could work. At the time, even some of her Miami friends and education contacts struggled to embrace her idea. She recalled many skeptical questions. “You want do this during the school day? And with kids being the teachers? ” Adding to the challenge: there were few financial resources for nonprofit, socially minded start-ups. “I knew,” she said, “it wasn’t going to be easy.” Encouraged by her mother, Fran Berrin, who had been a school guidance counselor for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and father, Bob Berrin, who worked in commercial real estate, Berrin forged ahead with her idea. She called on a number of contacts with medical, legal or educational expertise to flesh out a plan and help create a curriculum. Ransom Everglades alums, parents and trustees were supportive of HIP even before RE became a HIP school. As soon as Joely Kaufman-Janette ’88, P’18 ’24 , a dermatologist, learned about HIP she decided to get involved. “I originally heard what she was doing with peer-to- peer health education and was fascinated by the genius of it, since I knew that even my own kids didn’t listen to their doctor- mother when I gave them teenage health advice,” 2019 2018 HIP’s Charlotte (Joseph) Cassel ’03 and Risa Berrin ’98 meet with RE’s Peer Health Educators