Directing funding towards school wellness coordinators vs. school wellness programming

School Health Connection (SHC), a program of the Louisiana Public Health Institute, began implementing comprehensive wellness programs in New Orleans public schools in 2009. The School Wellness Program pilot demonstrated that in order to be most effective, all school health and wellness programs within a school should be coordinated. From 2009-2012, the first three years of the School Wellness Program, SHC directly employed School Wellness Coordinators and placed those coordinators into 12 participating public schools. Recurring challenges to programmatic success were found both related to school buy-in, administrative commitment, and ambiguity around reporting and expectations of services and delivery. In 2012, owing to these challenges, SHC released a request for application to award a school district/charter school operator funds to independently hire their own on-site School Wellness Coordinator to deliver the School Wellness Program. This new strategy of supplementing school staff, instead of continuing with external programming brought into schools, was intended to increase school commitment, clarify roles, and encourage the longer term institutionalization of staffing for wellness. This new funding provided full monies in the first year for staffing, and gradually reduces by a percentage to be made up by the school over the next three years through matching funds. This will allow schools to slowly establish School Wellness Coordinators as a sustainable position, thus ensuring overall coordinated wellness programming flourishes. This presentation will discuss strategies for increasing school commitment to wellness programs and how non-traditional funding relationships with schools can enhance the sustainability of school wellness programs.