RGUHS - School Health Programme Under NSS - Details

Introduction:

Creating health in the school setting means more than preventing or treating disease. In a 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 conditions that enable people to be healthy.
• Improving students’ understanding of health concepts and how to apply.
  them Engaging health and education officials, teachers, students, parents, and community leaders in efforts to promote health.
• Providing a safe, healthy environment, both physical and psychosocial.
• Providing effective skills-based health education.
• Providing access to health services.
• Implementing school policies and practices that support health.
• Striving to improve the health of the community.

A Health-Promoting School

Engages health and education officials, teachers and their representative organisations, students, parents, and community leaders in efforts to promote health, with

• Families and community groups involved in the school.
• Community services, businesses and organisations linked to the school.
• School/community projects and outreach.
• Health promotion for school staff.

Strives to provide a safe, healthy environment, including

• Sufficient sanitation and water.
• Freedom from abuse and violence.
• A climate of care, trust and respect.
• Social support and mental health promotion.
• Safe school grounds.
• Opportunities for physical education and recreation.

Provides skills-based health education, with

• Curricula that improve students' understanding of factors that influence health and enable them to make healthy choices and adopt healthy behaviours throughout their lives.
• Curricula that include critical health and life skills, a focus on promoting health and well-being as well as preventing important health problems, and information and activities appropriate to children's intellectual and emotional abilities.
• Training and education for teachers and parents.

Provides access to health services, with

• Services (screening, diagnosis, monitoring growth and development, vaccination, selected medications or procedures) that may be most efficiently provided in the school setting, depending on school resources and mandates.
• Partnerships with local health agencies that will provide services.
• Nutrition and food safety programmes.

Implements health-promoting policies and practices, such as

• An overall policy supported by school administration and management as well as teaching practices that help create a healthy psychosocial environment for students and staff.
• Policies on equal treatment for all students.
• Policies on drug and alcohol use, tobacco use, first aid and violence that help.
• Prevent or reduce physical, social and emotional problems.

Strives to improve the health of the community by

• Focusing on community health concerns.
• Participating in community health projects.

The impact of Health-Promoting Schools 

Children enjoy enhanced physical, psychological and social well-being and the ability to take full advantage of every opportunity for education. They benefit from their parents' participation in the school. Children who learn skills to maintain health when they are young are able to apply them in their adult lives and pass them along to their children.

Schools benefit by having parental and community input and support. They benefit by establishing links to important services and resources in the community. Broad participation from many sectors can reinforce classroom teaching by delivering consistent messages through mass media, community organisations, families and religious groups. School staff, who experience improved morale and skills, can do their jobs more effectively and improve their own health. School and health systems can maximise the efficient use of scarce resources as well as reducing waste.

Parents and community members benefit by gaining a broader knowledge base about local health problems, learning important new health information and skills, and taking part in their children’s education. They gain assurance that their neighbourhood school is open to their ideas and participation.

Community groups and organisations benefit by having students and teachers involved in community activities. Working in collaboration with the school can also help organisations make their services or products known or accessible. Educated and healthy people are an asset to the community as a whole.

Businesses can expect better-educated and more productive employees. Joint participation by schools and businesses also gives adults a mechanism for sharing information about what jobs are available in the community and the kinds of skills young people will need to find employment.

The nation, with healthier and better-educated men and women, has a stronger basis for economic development.

The world makes progress in guaranteeing fundamental human rights as

elaborated in numerous international health and education conventions and declarations.

Basic health requirements

·        Safe water and sanitary facilities

·        Protection from infectious diseases

·        Protection from discrimination, harassment, abuse and violence

·        Policies and actions that aim to prevent tobacco use, alcohol and substance abuse, and sexual behaviours that are likely to result in hiv/sti (sexually transmitted infections) and unintended pregnancy

·        Practices that foster active, healthy nutrition and conditions that areconducive to mental health.

Assemble a small group of people who share an interest in promoting health and improving pupil performance.

Include the school principal or administrator, a school board member, interested teachers, students, a parent and other local leaders, such as religious leaders, local government leaders, or people who work with youth outside the school.

Making contact with people who are involved in local health programmes or broader programmes to improve the education system can help you identify opportunities to promote health. Try to include some health professionals; they can talk about the health problems and emphasise the importance of and need for health promotion in schools.

Establishing a School Health Team

A central school team takes the lead and is made up mostly of school staff and students already working with you to promote the concept of Health- Promoting Schools.

·        Administrators

·        Leaders of teachers' representative organisations

·        Teachers/staff

·        Students

·        At least one parent

·        A local nurse or health care provider from the school or the community

·        A food service provider

·        Parent/teacher’s association representative

Assembling a Community Advisory Committee

·        Health care (nurses, clinic workers, physicians, public health staff)

·        Families and youth

·        Labour/trade unions

·        Women's groups

·        Early childhood education

·        Municipal or local government

·        Recreation

·        Arts and crafts

·        Banking

·        Sanitation/public works

·        Law enforcement

·        Local businesses

·        Transportation

·        Ngos, charities, development organizations

Assessing community health problems

·        Abuse of alcohol and other substances

·        Helminth (worm) infections

·        HIV/AIDS and STI

·        Vaccine Preventable Diseases

·        Malaria

·        Micronutrient deficiencies (iron, iodine, vitamin A)

·        Oral health problems

·        Protein energy malnutrition

·        Respiratory infections

·        Sanitation inadequacies

·        Tobacco use

·        Unsafe water

·        Vision and hearing problems

Assessing resources

·        Clinics, hospitals and health-care providers

·        Infant health, child nutrition, family planning, HIV prevention,safety and other National health programmes

·        Parent education and parent health promotion projects

·        NGOs and international projects

Develop an action plan

Developing the action plan, to become more specific. For each objective, ask what steps you need to carry out. Which steps will you take in Year 1, in Year 2, in Year 3? Are there other goals, with their own objectives? 

Funding and support

·        Community contributions (for example, cost sharing, donations and technical assistance)

·        Fundraising projects/days that bring everyone together to raise funds for a selected project

·        Income-generating activities in the school, making and selling of healthy meals

·        Partnerships with private enterprises

·        International agencies (for example, technical resources and seed money)

·        Volunteers to donate time, skills and energy