School health education programs can reduce health risk behaviors such as tobacco use, poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, drug and alcohol use, as well as actions that increase stress, and risk of injury, and violence. While countries may differ in nomenclature and structure to varying degrees, similar underpinning principles apply to all and the definition of a Health Promoting School (HPS) provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO 2015) encapsulates these well: ‘a school that is constantly strengthening its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working’. Each advocacy document makes a strong case for addressing an important health problem, identifies components of a comprehensive school health programme, and provides guidance in integrating the issue into the components. The underlying concept of health is more than the traditional WHO definition: ‘a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. The close relationship between these fields is a product of the interaction of school management and educational practices. Schools include health and wellbeing in their planning and review processes, teaching strategies, curriculum and assessment activities. A systematic review of studies on the effectiveness of school health promotion efforts, further concluded that programmes that account for contextual factors and emphasize multidimensional approaches are more likely to be effective in terms of health outcomes (Stewart-Brown, 2006). Atilola highlights the need for child and adolescent mental health policy, training also of teachers, school counselors, primary health physicians and social workers in basic restorative child and adolescent mental health services. Change to service delivery from 1st January 2020. The girls revealed greater gains in social awareness and greater reductions of the levels of social isolation and social anxiety when compared with boys. Central in this programme was the component of training and using student peers to make an everyday impact on other students. This special issue of HPI demonstrates the diversity in health promoting school initiatives and research. In addition, several methodological papers are presented including new instrument development, an innovative data collection method as well as analyses of complex system science in relation to HPS. They found that successful intersectoral collaboration between complex systems was created on strong interpersonal professional relationships and effective communication. The health promoting school aims at achieving healthy lifestyles for the total school population by developing supportive environments conducive to the promotion of health. Facilitating factors were related to school leadership and generally, supportive school culture. The alliance includes Education International, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Education Development Center, UNESCO, UNAIDS and GIZ. Nevertheless, the authors of the Cochrane review on ‘Assessment of the HPS framework on students’ health and well-being and their performance at school’ found that interventions using the HPS approach were able to reduce students’ body mass index (BMI), increase physical activity and fitness levels, improve fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease cigarette use, and reduce reports of being bullied. All rights reserved. This study showed the strong links between health behaviors and academic achievements among adolescents and emphasizes that schools and health promoters should be educated more on these relations, so that they are aware of this common interest to get more support for health promoting interventions. School health care and health promotion 6 KEY HPS FACTORS 8 KEY IMPLEMENTATION COMPONENTS. Children and adolescents need to be encouraged for physical activity, either supervised, or non-supervised, since nowadays many factors are competing for their time. Some differences were observed; in schools implementing an HPS strategy, there were increased visual cues to support healthy eating, physical activity and mental well-being and indications of a holistic approach to health. 44. ‘Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their ... action to change public policies. Importantly, the school managers expressed that having a school-health policy was vital to the success of their health promotion work and brought out the need of collaboration with school staff in all developmental intentions. Policy and leadership, partnerships, and competence were regarded as essential organizational and collaboration-related factors, whereas student participation, working climate and social network were factors that emphasized the school’s possibilities as being an arena for health promotion. This is surprising because, in theory, mental health is accepted as an essential component of health (WHO, 2001), the close relationship between physical and mental health is recognized (WFMH, 2004) and it is generally known that physical and mental health share many of the same social, environmental and economic determina… Preventing leading causes of death, disease and disability: helminths, tobacco use, HIV/AIDS/STDs, sedentary lifestyle, drugs and alcohol, violence and injuries, unhealthy nutrition. WHO's Global School Health Initiative, launched in 1995, seeks to mobilize and strengthen health promotion and education activities at the local, national, regional and global levels. A novel data collection method was used in the Kontak and colleagues’ study while examining school-based health environments through photographs in Canada. Published by Oxford University Press. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. Persson and Haraldsson focused on the Swedish school managers’ views of what health promotion in schools include, and found several factors that enabled the opportunities for learning and a good life. When you are a role model and authority figure for children, how you carry yourself matters. (, Langford R., Bonell C.P., Jones H.E., Pouliou T., Murphy S.M., Waters E. et al. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. In the existing literature, tools and frameworks developed for programme evaluation are often grounded in a linear programme fidelity perspective. * It is a broader concept than health education and it includes provision and activities relating to: healthy school policies, the schools physical and social environment, The findings suggest that the schools have a lot of potential to act towards healthier communities, if the individuals are engaged to the processes in a sustainable way. Making healthy decisions and taking control over life's circumstances. Your actions can always be scrutinized. They have expressed their commitment to the further development, expansion and/or improvement of their national health promoting school programmes (SHE, 2013; Buijis et al., 2014). Langford … Included, engaged and involved part 1: promoting and managing school attendance(June 2019) draws together advice on good practice and establishes requirements regarding classifying and recording attendance and absence. WHO's Health Promoting Schools initiative invites all governmental and nongovernmental organisations, development banks, organisations of the United Nations system, interregional bodies, bilateral agencies, the labour movement and co-operatives, as well as the private sector to help all schools to become Health Promoting Schools. A diversity that often makes comparisons difficult. The students devoting over four hours for scheduled exercise per week, increased their language and mathematics outcomes. The factors preventing and facilitating implementation of health promoting school practices were explored by Mcisaac and colleagues. Based on interviews, group discussions, observations, and documents from multiple participants and sources, majority of identified health promotion activities were related to physical and/or psychosocial health of students. (2011) proposes a new definition of health changing the emphasis towards the ability to adapt and self manage in the face of social, physical, and emotional challenges. The intervention contained multiple stages and included many activities, and proved to be feasible. Struthers and colleagues report the development process and the assessment of psychometric properties of the Health Promoting Schools Monitoring Questionnaire in South African high schools. Engages health and education officials, teachers, teachers' unions, students, parents, health providers and community leaders in efforts to make the school a healthy place. Especially the children’s responsibility, innovativeness, and sense of achievements were respected, and together with adults, they formed a collaborative team. The general direction of WHO's Global School Health Initiative is guided by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986); the Jakarta Declaration of the Fourth International Conference on Health Promotion(1997); and the WHO's Expert Committee Recommendation on Comprehensive School Health Education and Promotion (1995). Some countries have a long history in implementing health promoting schools while other countries just recently initiated a national health promoting school programme and joined the SHE network. Conversely, however, implementation is argued as being a complex process, which defies such linear one-dimensional thinking. The SHE network has demonstrated progress on a European and an international level, emphasising the role of schools in improving the health of children and young people. Their focus was to find out how health promotion is practiced in three schools that have agreed to implement the health promoting school (HPS) concept, appointed by regional service providers (e.g. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed by experts working in the field of health promoting schools, and the reliability by test-retest method by student sample. The goal of WHO's Global School Health Initiative is to increase the number of schools that can truly be called "Health-Promoting Schools". Also in the United States and Canada the ‘Comprehensive School Health Program’ and more recently the ‘Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child’ model are used more frequently. Huber et al. Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health. Currently child health policies in this region focus on prevention of childhood killer diseases whereas there is a lack of child mental health services. An effective school health programme can be one of the most cost effective investments a nation can make to simultaneously improve education and health. A collaborative work coordinated by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (St Leger et al., 2008) summarises what has been shown to work well and are prominent features of effective schools. Therefore, teachers are expected to be honest and act with integrity. History. Please note: This outline is simply a guide. For example, classroom sun protection lessons are reinforced and complemented by adequate provision of shade throughout the school and a school sun protection policy that informs parents and encourages … These national health promoting school policies can be integrated into other national education policies. Collaboration with other relevant policy areas, for example youth, social and environmental policies and sustainable development is essential. Telling people how to look after their health is just one part of health promotion. Search for other works by this author on: Equity, education and health: learning from practice: case studies of practice presented during the 4th European confernence on health promoting schools Odense, Denmark 7-9 October 2013, The WHO health promoting school framework for improving the health and well‐being of students and their academic achievement, An examination of Health Promoting Schools in Ireland, Improving Health and Social Cohesion through Education, Schools for Health in Europe network SHE factsheet 2: School health promotion: evidence for effective action, Schools for Health in Europe network SHE factsheet 1:State of the art: health promoting schools in Europe, Finnish parental involvement ethos, health support, health education knowledge and participation: results from a 2-year school health intervention, The impact of health and health behaviours on educational outcomes in high-income countries: a review of the evidence, Interventions for preventing obesity in children, © The Author 2017. Health-Promoting School, health is created by students, teachers, parents, and other community members who are: • Caring for themselves and others • Making decisions about and taking control of conditions and circumstances that affect health • Creating … social climate), and improved interactions and social relationships in school among peers and between students and adults. These are: developing and maintaining a democratic and participatory school community; developing partnerships between the policy makers of the education and health sectors; ensuring students and parents feel they have some sense of ownership in the life of the school; implementing a diversity of learning and teaching strategies; providing adequate time for class-based activities, organisation and coordination, and out of class activities; exploring health issues within the context of the students’ lives and community; utilising strategies that adopt a whole school approach rather than primarily a classroom learning approach; providing ongoing capacity-building opportunities for teachers and associated staff; creating an excellent social environment which fosters open and honest relationships within the school community; ensuring a consistency of approach across the school and between the school, home and wider community; developing both a sense of direction in the goals of the school and clear and unambiguous leadership and administrative support; providing resources that complement the fundamental role of the teacher and which are of a sound theoretical and accurate factual base; creating a climate where there are high expectations of students in their social interactions and educational attainments. Plan and prepare Emergency operations plans: review, update, and implement EOPs. They highlight the current research from social neuroscience, belonging and social connectedness in order to present the pathways between daily school … Bell and colleagues applied a school-based smoking prevention programme into obesity prevention intervention among 12–13 year olds. The theme related to school health policies continues in Atilola’s article, in which Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model is a framework to capture child mental health policy development in sub-Saharan Africa. Health Promoting Schools (HPS) is an approach that supports school communities to create and sustain environments that improve and maintain their hauora (health and wellbeing). The papers published in this special edition of Health Promotion International focus on health promoting schools from many different points of view. Research on health promotion in schools led to results close to those coming from other domains. An intersectoral approach is now widely recognized as a condition for all schools to make a difference for health and well-being of all pupils and of teaching and non-teaching staff by strengthening school’s capacity as a healthy place in which to live, learn and work. The results bring out a variety of positive effects, of which the most conclusive evidence included personal effects on students (e.g. Nearly two in three countries (62%) have a formal health promoting school policy, in most cases as part of their education policies, followed by inclusion in their public health policies, or a combination of education and health policies (SHE, 2013). Results from programme implementation remain unclear and challenging to evaluate. The Health Promoting School, networks and links up with other schools in this process and may become a role model for other schools.A sense of ownership of self and the school is established and self respect in reinforced. However, the authors conclude that the implementation was resource and labour intensive and relatively expensive. The induction is done by the head teacher or one of the Assistant Head Teacher. Therefore, there is a need to shift from the over focus on ‘one size fits all’ evidence-based fidelity, to a more flexible perspective of anchoring and tailoring interventions to the different contexts. Intervention schools were members of the regional SHE network, having a health promoting culture, structure, and related activities, whereas control schools had no status of SHE school. Health Promotion with Schools: a policy for the health system is one product arising from the recommended directions.It reflects better practice in working with schools to promote health,and will provide a useful foundation from which the health system can move forward in working more effectively with schools. ... volunteers are expected to sign that they have understood the H&S School’s policy in the presence of the trainer. The whole school approach to health has six essential components; (i) healthy school policies, (ii) physical environment of school, (iii) social environment of school, (iv) individual health skills and action competencies, (v) community links and (vi) health services (Moynihan et al., 2016). They highlight the current research from social neuroscience, belonging and social connectedness in order to present the pathways between daily school recess and health trajectories. Following a detailed description of an intervention, as in this article, the reader, whether being professional in the school, or researcher in the field, gets a possibility to follow the steps and possibly avoid the pitfalls in planning phase. With several measurements, this Chilean study revealed that a majority of the children participated in scheduled exercise under two hours per week. There is a growing body of evidence on the link between health and education on the one hand and effectiveness of school health promotion on the other hand. School managers, persons who have the main administrative responsibility for the schools in their district, are a relatively rarely studied group related to school health promotion; though they have a great influence on priority areas performed at schools. In my school, the health and safety policies are used effectively in various ways. . It also stresses that families and the community should be involved (see Sormunen et al., 2013). García-Vázquez examined the effect of the HPS programme in schools that are part of the regional SHE network on health behaviours of first-year and fourth-year secondary school students (mean age 12.5 years and 15.8 years, respectively) in Northern Spain, Asturia. Such activities went beyond the scope of traditional health education. It also poses a question how the surrounding community could support schools more in their health promoting practices. The health promoting school approach has been adapted in many European countries, Australia and New Zealand. Healthy School Award schemes, which provide structured frameworks, health-related targets and external support, represent one way of helping schools become health promoting, a factor identified in the UK Health of the Nation Government White Paper (1992) as facilitating the achievements of stated targets for prevention. The perspective is intersectoral since the core business of schools is focused on educational outcomes, rather than the reduction of health problems. A whole school approach to health promotion was not implemented systematically into schools’ policies. Health promoting schools focus on: caring for oneself and others. Rosas analyses system thinking and complexity in relation to health promoting school concept. Furthermore, it emerged that depending on the aims of the school-based health programme, a different level of collaboration was needed varying from schools as a site to delivery of clinical service to programmes which sought to change the behavior of students and/or schools as organisations. Of eight schools, four were allocated to intervention schools and four to control schools. It is important that schools promote healthy eating habits through programs and guidelines 1. Expected achievements in health promotion and prevention programmes are multi-level and complex, often manifesting on a long-term basis, and encompassing quite complex interactions between people and their life ecosystems. Stigma and lack of understanding about mental disorders are major barriers to seeking help and promoting better mental health. Influencing health-related behaviours: knowledge, beliefs, skills, attitudes, values, support. Criterion 1 Promoting a healthy school involves the provision of a safe, secure and stimulating environment that encourages and supports pupils, staff and members of the whole school community, both in and out of school. These include preschools, primary, secondary and other types of schools, including vocational schools. The themes discourse basic pillars related to health promoting schools from theoretical, practical, policy and methodological perspectives focusing on participation in HPS and implementation of HPS. Examples of actions that a school can take 6 Accountability 7 Enquiries 8 2 . In each member country the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education appointed a SHE national coordinator who is responsible for the national health promoting school programme (if one such existed). Effective Health Promoting Schools (HPS) make a major contribution to schools achieving their educational and social goals. The system thinking theme continues in a study from Tooher and colleagues in Australia from the point of view of integration and collaboration in various school-based health programmes and the barriers and enablers to successful intersectoral collaboration between education. The health status of the learners, educators, community and the environment is enhanced. The eco-holistic whole –school-approach (WSA) was the theoretical background in Busch and colleagues’ study in which the associations of several health behaviours (alcohol use, cannabis use and smoking habits; screen time use; bullying/being bullied; healthy nutrition and physical activity, psychosocial problems) with school performance was examined in a sample of Dutch secondary school students. We publish a series of guidance on school attendance. Its development was inspired by the Ottawa Charter presented at the first international conference on health promotion in 1986, which helped changing the context for health promotion significantly. There is strong evidence to support the Health Promoting Schools approach as a best practice framework for school health promotion. Research to improve school health programmes: Evaluation research and expert opinion is analyzed and consolidated to describe the nature and effectiveness of school health programmes. They found that there were significant intervention gains in three (of five) social–emotional competencies: increases in social awareness and self-control and decreases in the levels of social anxiety in the first cohort. Hence, the focus on two behaviours at the same time appeared too complex for informal diffusion through peer networks. In addition, environments and cultural practices should support and encourage children and young people to eat healthier foods and also support them in being active throughout each and every day. In addition, a global partnership for the purpose of competence transfer is needed. The article brings out an important message that health promotion interventions are necessary to find out effective ways to influence to target group, as well as keep updated on the methods available. . Creating conditions that are conducive to health (through policies, services, physical/social conditions). 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