THE COORDINATED SCHOOL HEALTH MODEL

School health programs are most effective in helping youth develop healthy lifestyles when all components are coordinated and when they reinforce one another. Comprehensive school health education can and should work with other CSH components in a number of ways. (See Chapter 1

for a detailed discussion of the elements of the Coordinated School Health model.)

School nurses, counselors, and other school health staff are key partners with classroom health teachers in promoting the health of children and adolescents. Health education content can also be strengthened when health teachers collaborate with other teachers and staff, as well as with students, families, and the community. School nurses are an excellent resource and can offer presentations on a wide range of health issues at all grade levels. They may be called upon to deliver behavioral health education lessons in some areas (e.g., puberty, staying healthy during flu season, dealing with depression and stress), and they can make youth aware of the school and community health and mental health services available to them. Additionally, by working with school health staff, teachers can learn how to access and use the school’s identification and referral system so that they may guide students with health needs toward the appropriate staff professionals.

Physical education teachers and school food service staff are additional resources in promoting health. Students who learn about target heart rate in health class can be asked in physical education to monitor their own heart rates before and after exercise. Food service staff can give teachers and students information about nutrition and safe food handling. Teachers, in turn, can involve their students in analyzing the nutritional content of cafeteria offerings. Teachers of non-health subjects can sometimes be enlisted to deliver health education lessons. The Planet Health curriculum, for example (Gortmaker et al., 1999), includes nutrition and physical-activity lessons to be taught by middle-school math, science, social studies, and language arts teachers.

Older students can also be an effective resource. Some successful elementary and middle-school health education programs involve trained high-school peer leaders in conducting classroom health education activities. Children and youth are more likely to adopt a behavior if it is modeled or advocated by someone they wish to emulate.

Family and community involvement in health education is especially important. Parents/guardians and community agency members (including primary care providers) can and should be involved in school health advisory committees. Many school-based prevention programs also involve parents/guardians and community agency personnel in the implementation of health education curricula. For example, community agency personnel may assist students with assignments that ask them to identify the particular health needs of their communities and/or to locate health-related products and services available in their communities.

Health teachers can encourage family involvement by sending home information about health and by providing parent/guardian education programs focusing on topics that parallel those covered in the curriculum.