The School Health Program: A component of community health

1
Chapter 6
The School Health Program A
Component of Community
Health
2
Introduction

• The school health program is an important
  component of community health because every
  citizen must pass through this institution.

3
Health Challenges of Youth
The health challenges facing youth today are
vastly different from those of past decades.
Advances in medications and vaccines have largely
addressed the ravages once wrought by infectious
diseases. Today, the health of young people, and
the adults they will become, is critically linked
to the health-related behaviors they choose to
adopt.
CDC, 1996
4
Health Challenges of Youth
In the 1990s, . . . by age 15, about a
quarter of all young adolescents are engaged in
behaviors that are harmful or dangerous to
themselves others. Of 28 million adolescents
between the ages of 10 18, approximately 7
million are at serious risk of being harmed by
health even life-threatening activities. Only
half of the adolescents in this age group, or
about 14 million, appear to be growing up
basically healthy. Even these young people are
not immune to risk, since most of them at the
very least lack adequate decision-making skills.
Fateful Choices, 1990
5
Why School Health?
Our Nations Schools---A Unique
Opportunity-- Every school day, 50 million young
people attend over 100,000 schools staffed by
over 5 million employees across our nation (1/5
of USA pop). Given the size and accessibility of
this population, our schools could make an
enormous, positive impact on the health of the
nation.
CDC, 1996
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Ripple Effect of Behavioral Choices

• SELF
• Immediate - Short Term Health
• Future - Long Term Health
• FAMILY
• Spouse or partner
• Children
• Grandchildren
• COMMUNITY
• Environmental Policies
• Volunteer work
• Elections and laws

7
Definition

• Coordinated School Health Program
• An organized set of policies, procedures, and
  activities designed to protect, promote, and
  improve the health and well-being of students and
  staff, thus improving the students ability to
  learn.

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Components

• school health education
• health services
• school environment
• Counseling and psychological and social services
• Health promotion
• Physical education
• School nutrition
• Family and community

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Coordinated School Health Program
Health Education
Parent/ Community Involvement
Physical Education
Health Services
Health Promotion for Staff
Nutrition Services
Healthy School Environment
Counseling, Psychological, and Social Services
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Comprehensive School Health Components

• School health services
• comprise health appraisals, emergency services,
  prevention control of communicable diseases,
  provision for handicapped students, health
  advising remediation of detected health
  problems.
• Healthful school environment
• provides for a safe health learning environment
  (includes both physical social)
• Health Education
• includes all health education in the schools

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School Health Team
Parents
Students
Teachers
Administrators
Medical personnel
Maintenance workers
Social workers
Food service workers
Personnel
Counseling
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Administrator or School Health Coodinators role

• Organize supervise all aspects of school health
  program,
• Organize supervise those on the school health
  team,
• Insure that the school district has an
  appropriate health record-keeping system
• Coordinate the activities of the program with
  those in the community,
• Insure that written school health policies are in
  place understood,
• Serve as a consultant to professional and
  nonteaching personnel on health activities

Schaller, 1981
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School Health Team

• School nurse - Primary Leadership
• (Lacking in many school districts)
• maintain and review birth records
• dispense medications
• train others
• conduct health follow-ups
• help develop school health policies
• identify students with medical problems
• identify community health resources

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School Health Team

• Teachers role
• instruction
• services
• school living
• coordination

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Why School Health?
Clearly, no knowledge is more crucial than
knowledge about health. Without it, no other
life goal can be successfully achieved.
Therefore, we recommend that all students study
health, learning about the human body, how it
changes over the life cycle, what nourishes it
and diminishes it, and how a healthy body
contributes to emotional well being.
Ernest L. Boyer, 1983
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Need for School Health

• Health of children and their learning are
  reciprocally related.
• Unhealthy child has a difficult time learning
• unhealthy child can be disruptive to others
• school programs included in Health People 2010
• not a panacea

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Link Between Health and Learning

• Health lt------------------gt Learning
• SBP (1966) ------gtIncrease in test scores
• Decrease in tardiness and absenteeism
  rates
• Cardiovascular healthlt------ Education about
  diet and exercise

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Foundations of SH Programs

• Administrative Support
• Leadership
• Resource Allocation
• Qualified and Motivated Team
• Written School Health Policies

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School Health Services

• Basic Health
• Health Screening
• Detect problems and refer
• Expanded Health
• Care for medically underserved
• Increased health promotion
• Comprehensive Health
• School -based Clinic

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Healthful School Environment

• Safe and wholesome
• Physical environment
• Physical Plant and Grounds
• Behaviors
• Social/Emotional
• Respectful, civil, cooperative, and courteous

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School Health Education/ Instruction

• a planned, sequential, pre-kindergarten to grade
  12 curriculum based on students needs societal
  issues,
• to motivate health maintenance promote wellness
  not merely to prevent disease,
• to develop decision-making making skills
  individual responsibility for ones health,
• to develop and demonstrate health related
  knowledge, attitudes, practices,
• to integrate of physical, mental, emotional,
  social dimensions,

National Professional School Health
Organizations, 1984
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Relationship of school health instruction
health education
Education through athletics
Education with screenings
Education with fire tornado drills
Health fair
HEALTH EDUCATION
Health instruction
Education with food service
Education with courses other than health
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School Health Instruction Content

• Community health
• Consumer health
• Environmental health
• Family life
• Mental emotional health
• Injury prevention safety
• Nutrition
• Personal health
• Prevention control of disease
• Substance use abuse

Joint Committee on School Health Education, 1990
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Instructional Approaches

• Direct
• health is taught as a separate discipline
• Correlated
• health is taught as part of other disciplines,
  i.e., science, home economics or physical
  education
• Integrated
• health is the vehicle through which other
  disciplines are taught

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Science
Math
Home Economics
Language Arts
HEALTH
Social Studies
Physical Education
Music
Art
Integrated Instructional Approach
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Concerns Issues

• Comprehensive school health programs
• research shows programs work - however they are
  not in place in all schools although the need is
  strong
• Controversy
• based on differing values religious teachings
  over the proper implementing of the curriculum
• School-based clinics/School linked clinics
• offer comprehensive health services, have met
  with resistance in certain communities
• Violence in Schools
• risk factors need to be identified

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Chapter 6
The School Health Program A Component of
Community Health
28
Introduction

• The school health program is an important
  component of community health because every
  citizen must pass through this institution.