The Surgeon General's Report, Healthy People 2010, states that "the health of the individual is almost inseparable from the health of the larger community." The report challenges individuals to make healthy lifestyle choices and clinicians to put prevention into their practice. It identifies ten indicators that address Healthy People 2010's goals of increasing quality and years of healthy life and eliminating health disparities. These indicators, reflecting the major contemporary public health concerns in the United States, illuminate individual behaviors, physical and social environmental factors, and important health system issues.
Schools are a crucial venue for addressing these behaviors, factors, and system issues. Coordinated school health programs (CSHPs) provide the organizing concept and strategy for doing so. Encompassing systems change, curricula, and services delivery that involve multiple existing school-based health and prevention initiatives, CSHPs address access to health care, mental health services, physical activity, overweight and obesity, tobacco and substance use, responsible sexual behavior, injury and violence, and environmental quality.
Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is working with Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Wisconsin to create partnerships between government and non-governmental organizations that can help local school districts implement CSHPs.This interactive session will describe how five state partnerships are helping schools implement comprehensive preventive services and curricular interventions to improve health and social outcomes for youth whose lives contain multiple risk factors; identify how CSHPs can build on the multiple single-purpose initiatives that many schools are already carrying out;and provide strategic guidance on how to mobilize key players and develop action plans.
Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to: 1. Analyze how existing school-based prevention services and curricula can be reconfigured into more comprehensive initiatives that better address the behavior change in children and adolescents identified by the Surgeon General for improving health outcomes; 2. Develop strategies for achieving such systems change at their own state and local school district levels
Keywords: Challenges and Opportunities, School-Based Programs
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.