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Background
The goal of the Initiative is that of forming future generations with the appropriate knowledge, abilities, and skills necessary to care for their health, and that of their family and community, as well as to create and maintain healthy environments where to study, work and live. The purpose of the Initiative is to develop and strengthen the capacity of the countries to implement, maintain and expand their health promoting schools.
Health education in schools has a long and rich history in all the countries of the region. Health services such as periodic medical and dental exams, visual and/or auditive check-ups and attention to problems are still traditional activities. However, in various meetings held throughout the Region, practitioners and researchers alike have indicated the need for a comprehensive approach and more innovative strategies, that respond to the new social, political, and economic dynamics, which include: training and updating to the teachers; participation of the students, the parents, and the community; health services that respond to the real needs of the school-age population, promotion of healthy behaviors, nutritious meals in the school lunchrooms; and the use of formal educational and not-formal methodologies directed at forming new abilities and skills, thus making school life a learning opportunity that will contribute to human development, peace and equity.
Health promotion in schools is a pressing priority. Ensuring the right to health and education for all children is a responsibility shared by all. It is an investment that each society should do in order to generate and augment the creative and productive capacity of all young people, a sustainable social and human future.
The implementation of the health promoting schools initiative will help primary health services and schools work together and improve their ability to detect and offer assistance to children and young people in a timely fashion, detaining and preventing the increase in the number of young people and adolescents that adopt risk behaviors that put their health in danger such as with smoking, consumption of alcoholic beverages, substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and early pregnancy. Phenomena such as the exploitation of child labor (to which hundreds of boys and girls remain exposed upon dropping out of school) or the violence epidemic reported in so many cities of the region. This could be in part prevented, with school-based actions to prepare young people for the world of work, activities to improve living conditions, and involving young people in a learning process that would avoid discrimination, promote harmonious relations among the genders and model ways that people can resolve conflicts through dialogue, communication, and negotiation.
Concept
The health promoting schools initiative provides a comprehensive vision, and a multidisciplinary approach that considers people in the context of their daily life, in the family, community and society. The Initiative focuses on the development of knowledge, abilities, and skills to assist people to take care of their health and that of others and to prevent risk behaviors. The activities are carried out in a variety of educational opportunities. A critical-reflexive analysis of values, behaviors, social conditions and lifestyles is encouraged, strengthening those that favor health and human development; facilitating the participation of all the members of the educational community in making decisions it contributes to promote socially egalitarian relations among the genders, encourages the construction of citizenship and democracy; and strengthens traditions of solidarity and community spirit, as well as protects human rights.
Components
The health promoting schools Initiative in the Americas is being implemented with the following main components:
- Comprehensive school health education, based on the needs of the students in each stage of their development and in accord with their individual social, cultural and gender characteristics. Comprehensive and participatory health education strengthens the self-esteem and the capacity of young people in order to form healthy lifestyles and practices, and to increase their potential to be productive members of society. This component strives to develop knowledge, abilities, and skills, and not only to provide information. This health education approach is based on positive values that strengthen the schoolchildren's personal, family and community life skills and abilities.
- Healthy and supportive environments and surroundings, includes basic sanitation for clean and structurally adequate physical spaces, as well as to support networks for healthy and safe psycho-social surroundings, free from physical, verbal and/or emotional abuse, assault of violence. This component develops and strengthens the capacity of each school to create and maintain environments and surroundings supportive to health and learning, for students, teachers and other personnel who work in the school. It includes health promotion for the teaching and administrative staff, and maintenance workers as well as activities to promote health with teacher and parent associations and with different community organizations.
- Adequate health services and food and nutrition programs are those that try to detect and prevent health problems, risk factors, behaviors and conditions, giving early attention to the young people. Includes activities to detect and prevent risk behaviors, as well as to increase self control and preventive attitudes and practices. It is intended to strengthen the relationship between the school with the health team, and to increase their understanding of each others roles and their capacity to complement and strengthen each other. This component should complement and enhance the health education activities; and the creation of healthy and supportive environments, including counseling services and psychological support, physical education, sports, recreation, and support for small productive projects such as school gardens, the teaching of trades and internships in companies, private business, and others.
An important challenge which we face in order to implement the regional strategy, is that of involving the society as a whole, the international agencies, the pertinent sectors, the communications sector, public and private media, the political decision-makers, diverse technical cooperation agencies, teachers and parents in the mobilization of human resources and materials necessary to implement the Initiative.
We need to encourage community leaders, decision makers and influential persons to become advocates for this Initiative; and to provide the critical visibility and leadership required to mobilize public opinion in support of the Initiative, and to convince key social actors to provide the necessary resources. The success of the Initiative depends to a great extent on the commitment of the countries and the leadership of all sectors.
Mission
The Health Promoting Schools Initiative is a global strategy to strengthen health promotion and health education in all aspects of education, where children, teachers and other members of the school community learn, work and play. Its mission is to cooperate technically with the Member Countries and stimulate cooperation among them, building consensus with the health and education sectors and establishing partnerships with other sectors in order to maintain healthy and supportive physical and psychosocial environments and to develop life skills for healthy lifestyles, with students, teachers and parents.
Regional Strategy and Activities
- Analysis and updating of joint policies between the education sector and the health sector, includes a review of the current legislation, and policy that defines sector mandates and responsibilities for school health. Activities of advocacy for mobilizing public opinion and the social sectors on the importance of the Initiative of Health Promoting Schools are included. The dissemination of the school health priorities through the mass media and the construction of alliances and social pacts are of fundamental importance to build support for the Initiative.
- Consolidation and strengthening of the mechanisms of intersectoral coordination, includes the activation or formation of joint commissions to formulate public policies, coordinate the needs assessment, analysis of problems and needs, a review of the state of the art of current health education curricula, and to follow up the evaluation of the process and results of the implementation of the strategy.
- Development, realization, and evaluation of the plans and programs to implement the components of health promotion in the area schools, includes: the curriculum design needed to include modern innovative and comprehensive school health education content and methods, the incorporation of the approach to gender into the study contents, the integration of health into the cross axes, and other areas of the program of studies; the training to teachers and personnel of both sectors; the production of educational materials; the appropriate development and delivery of health services and school feeding programs (lunch, breakfast, snack); and the activities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive environments and surroundings.
- Involve parent-teacher associations, community organizations, representatives of the health sector, and other sectors and encourage leaders and decision makers in school health promotion activities to include this Initiative in local development plans. Develop projects with a variety of public and private partnerships and social interest groups and implement them to prevent school drop-outs as well as to involve and recuperate the children and young people that are outside the education system.
- Design and carry out research in the school-age population to evaluate the conditions and health risk conduct in the school population as well as instruments to evaluate the results of health promotion in acquiring knowledge abilities and health care promotion dexterities in school age children.
- Develop and implement programs aimed at achieving a better articulation between the school and the world of the work, protecting in that way the rights to the health and the education of children and worker adolescents while optimizing the opportunities for children to adequately have an understanding and experience in the world of work.
PAHO/WHO technical cooperation in the region has focused on sensitizing policy and decision makers about the regional strategy and preparing technical personal to implement such a strategy at the country level. It consists of disseminating the knowledge and methodology and to provide forums for the sharing of experiences and information among the countries. To this end, 7 regional and subregional meetings were carried out since 1993, in which support was provided to the constitution of the Latin American Network of Health Promoting Schools. The Regional Program also prepared project profiles to present to potential donor agencies in order to search and mobilize the resources needed to train the persons who will integrate subregional technical teams and the national commissions that will organize national networks of health promoting schools in every country. A project profile to procure resources to produce and disseminate a News Bulletin of the previously mentioned Network was also prepared. In 1997 a model was designed to train teachers and to develop techniques to evaluate the Initiative.
As a result of the regional meeting held in Costa Rica in November 1996, the opportunity was envisioned to recollect and add to the Network the numerous experiences gathered by the countries to increase the Health Promotion Schools. The goals of Network include the dissemination of the various experiences that numerous countries have with developing and strengthening Health Promoting Schools.
The construction and consolidation of the Latin American Network of Health Promoting Schools is a major ongoing project which provide a space for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, resources, and experiences that has the potential to nurture an "esprit de corp", the mystique and the enthusiasm of teachers, students and parents everywhere.
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