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Knowledge Matters October 2010
Canada's monthly school health report from the Canadian Association for School Health
Volume 5 Issue 2 (October 2010)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________Volume 5 Issue 2 (October 2010)
(Download to print version)
Featuring: An Agenda for Integrating Health, Safety, Environmental and Social Development Programs within School Systems
The feature article for this month is a nice follow up to the September issue highlighting how health and other programs can improve student achievement and school effectiveness. The article provides a list of topics or ways in which advocates for health, safety and other programs can radically revise their thinking and approach so that their concerns are integrated within (not with) the mandates and constraints of school systems. This summary is based on a longer draft paper being prepared for the International School Health Network as a follow up to discussions at a recent international school health symposium in Geneva in July 2010.
| Canadian School Health Knowledge Network News | Canadian Media Reports for October 2010 |
| News Story (Oct 31-10) Parents of special-needs students left reeling by threat of closures http://is.gd/gQXBU News Story (Oct 28-10) Peel Youth Take on Leadership Role at Conference http://is.gd/gQTbP News Story (Oct 28-10) MPs hear Wi-Fi worries about school kids http://is.gd/gQT5Z Blog Post (Oct 21-10) Switzerland Uses Wire, not Wifi in Schools http://is.gd/gQKFj News Story (Oct 27-10) Ontario School website offers new option for students to report bullying http://is.gd/gQKiS News Story (Oct 24-10) Teach sex and evolution or close, Quebec evangelical schools told http://is.gd/ioytW News Story (Oct 21-10) Supreme Court consider if students can opt out Quebec ethics religious culture. http://is.gd/ioAB8 News Story (Oct 25-10) One in ten teens has same-sex partners: Study http://is.gd/ioBJt News Story (Oct 15-10) Schools hope single-sex education will help boys excel http://is.gd/ioBgh News Story (Oct 26-10) Newfoundland School Holds Food Forum http://is.gd/gQJMP Blog Post (Oct 25-10) Beyond Homophobia: We Need to Make it Better http://is.gd/gQIvr News Story (Oct 28-10) 3 provinces failing students with ADHD: Study http://is.gd/gzIvl News Story (Oct 27-10) Nunavut territory in Canada creates suicide prevention plan http://is.gd/gzFBu News Story (Oct 28-10) Investing More Time Brings Sophistication to Social Media Efforts http://is.gd/gzERk News Story (Oct 28-10) Low HPV vaccination rates show need for school programs: Expert http://is.gd/gzEnK News Story (Oct 29-1) CFL fines Blue Bomber for pink gloves http://is.gd/gwXyV News Story (Oct 28-10) MPs hear Wi-Fi worries about school kids http://is.gd/gwWT6 News Story (Oct 27-10) 3 provinces get failing grades on ADHD: report http://is.gd/iouYK News Release (Oct 25-10) Johnson Foundation Hires Social Media Manager http://is.gd/gwVNv News Story (Oct 28-10) Low HPV vaccination rates show need for school programs: Expert http://is.gd/gwVcY News Story (Oct 29-10) Experts wrestle with vaccinating boys for HPV http://is.gd/gwV7S News Story (Oct 29-10) Dirty hands rampant in Saskatoon health staffDoctors and nurses lax in handwashing, survey finds http://is.gd/gwUNM Planning Guide Using Social Media in Health Promotion (CDC, 2010) http://is.gd/g9RKX News Story (Oct 20-10) N.L. expands flu shot program http://is.gd/g9PQR News Story (Oct 20-10) School trustees focus on nurturing healthy neighbourhoods http://is.gd/iox0E News Story (Oct 26-10) Weight loss: Should schools push children to lose weight? http://is.gd/iov76 Perspective (Oct 19-10) No place for homophobia in schools http://is.gd/ioxae News Story (Oct 18-10) Parents vote to shut off Wi-Fi at Ont. school http://is.gd/iouOl News Story (Oct 13-10) BPA officially labelled 'toxic' in Canada http://is.gd/g9OoL News Story (Oct 15-10) School Health Issues & The Alberta Civic Election http://is.gd/g7vib News Story (Oct 14-10) Turning Surrey BC Schools into 'Neighbourhood Learning Hubs' http://is.gd/g7uNV News Story (Oct 14-10) As part of Safe Schools Week, children in Fredericton Learn about Fire Safety http://is.gd/g7uie News Story (Oct 15-10) Five reasons why boys are failing http://is.gd/g79Su News Story (Oct 18-10) U.S. schools seek role models for boys http://is.gd/g79Py News Story (Oct 15-10) How boys are falling behind girls http://is.gd/g79Jd News Story (Oct 15-10) Failing boys and the powder keg of sexual politics http://is.gd/g79H1 News Story (Oct 18-10) Failing Boys: The endangered male teacher http://is.gd/g79DL News Story (Oct 15-10) Children of military parents suffer fallout from PTSD: study http://is.gd/g79zs News Release (Oct 15-10) Active Healty Kids Canada Advises No Funding for Future Report Cards http://is.gd/g7893 News Release (Oct 15-10) Health Canada Funds three Drug Prevention Projects in BC http://is.gd/g6T0S Blog Post (Oct 6-10) Healthy Smiles Program for Children in Ontario http://is.gd/g2ioM News Release Oct 7-10) Manitoba Grants for Healthy Schools campaign this fall focuses on MENTAL HEALTH. http://is.gd/fREXk Report School Bus Air Quality (Clean Air Partnership, Canada, 2010) http://is.gd/fRhGe News Release (Oct 7-10) Two national Youth Prevention projects funded by Health Canada http://is.gd/fQ4r6 News Story (Oct 1-10) Smoke from Iqaluit dump affects schools http://is.gd/iouEq |
Our blog also tracks Canadian research studies, reports and new planning/educational resources announcements. Here are the ones posted for October 2010:
Articles in Issue #2 2010 of Perspectives (Canadian Teachers Federation)
- Deconstructing Beauty
- Classroom Lessons on Body Image
Articles in the Sept-Oct 2010 Issue of Canadian Journal of Public Health
- Prevention Potential of Risk Factors for Childhood Overweight
- Predictors of Canadian Physicians’ Prevention Counseling Practices
- Upsurge of Chlamydial Reinfection in a Large Canadian City: An Indication of Suboptimal Chlamydia Screening Practices?
- Sexual and Reproductive Health Education: Contrasting Teachers’, Health Partners’ and Former Students’ Perspectives
- Engaging Community Partners to Promote Healthy Behaviours in Young Children
- CPHA and the Social Determinants of Health: An Analysis of Policy Documents and Statements and Recommendations for Future Action
- In Support of Call for Improvement in Aboriginal Child Health
- "Caffeinating" children and youth
- Uganda at risk of reversing HIV/AIDS progress
- Bedbug bites becoming bigger battle
- Energy drinks: beverage industry response
Feature Article: Integrating Health Promotion, Safety, Social Development and Environmental Sustainability within the Mandates and Constraints of School Systems: Key Concepts and their Implications
By Douglas S McCall, Executive Director, International School Health Network
Introduction
This summary begins a discussion about how school health, safety, social development and other human development programs and approaches can be integrated within the educational mandates and constraints of school systems so that the needs and priorities of educators are met as a primary consideration before other health, social or social purposes are accomplished. In this paper, we identify and discuss some key concepts underlying and governing school systems and then examine their strategic, policy and program implications. Please note that the implications identified thus far in this document come only from one person using this new lens to approach school-based and school-linked human development programs. Further discussions in webinars, web meetings and in online wiki-based discussions are needed to fully understand these implications. These concepts could become an agenda framing subsequent discussions about this integration.
In the past advocates and practitioners involved in health, safety, social and sustainable development approaches and programs have valiantly tried to persuade educators of the value of their respective program goals by documenting their value in improving student achievement and school effectiveness. While this documentation is worthwhile, it is suggested here that a more fundamental shift needs to be made, such that educational priorities and needs are paramount.
Paulus (2005), writing from the experience of the German model that combines a “healthy school” model with a “good school” model, has suggested that this fundamental re-thinking is needed because:
- the growth in the numbers of healthy schools in many countries continues to be slow, difficult and fragile
- educational policy debates still exclude health promotion (and social development) considerations and remain focused on academic ad vocational priorities
- the concept of the healthy school did not originate in the education sector and its primary concern is still the health of the children
- health continues to be seen as an “add-on” to the mission of the school and quite secondary to its true purposes
There are other strong reasons as well. The first is derived from the ongoing difficulties to sustain comprehensive approaches, coordinated agency-school programs and whole school strategies within school systems. Such multi-intervention programs are almost always dependent on external funding and expertise and as such, usually disappear soon after the withdrawl of external support.
The second reason is the emerging concern and growing understanding within the education sector that more holistic understandings about the nature of learning and students is required. This is exemplified in the recent OECD policy work on the social role of the school, the development of the whole child concept among educational leaders, the 21st Century Learning initiative catching on in several countries and the increased concern with parent and community partnerships from education ministries around the world.
A third reason for radical thinking about these concepts is derived from a maturation among several school-based models and approaches that have been developed and disseminated across the globe. These include “healthy schools” developed in cooperation between the health and education sectors, “community schools” that have been developed by welfare and education systems, “safe schools” that have been developed by educators and law enforcement agencies and ‘green schools” that have been developed by schools and the environmental sector.
The various movements and sectors that are behind these models developed on non-educational sectors, as well as the several comprehensive approaches developed by the education sector itself (on topics such as social-emotional learning, behaviour support, inclusive education etc) are increasingly recognizing that it is in their interest to cooperate rather than compete in working with educators.
The recent renewal of the Millennium Development Goals has rightly refocused our attention on the need for all children to access and gain from education and schooling. So it is not surprising that various approaches and models of health promotion and social development in low income countries will be focusing their efforts on working with school systems. As well, schools are increasingly recognized as a vital and central place in the community for reviving countries and communities that have been devastated by war, disaster or disease.
Finally, this recognition that a fundamental shift in orientation is needed is shared by those same sectors. The synthesis statement prepared by the International School Health Network (2009) that identifies ten key points common to all of the various human development and schools models and approaches includes the advice that the mandates and constraints of the school systems be considered as one of ten key implementation strategies.
The revolutionary thought from this paper is not that this new approach is necessary and scientifically valid. The hard part is actually doing it, with basically the same meagre resources that schools and public health systems currently have for school health promotion in a socio-political environment that rewards the quick fix and the easy answers as well as the challenge of working through professional systems that reward specialization and encourage competition for resources through project-based funding of internal and external activities. Further, what is new in this approach might be these findings:
- building system capacity might be less expensive than single issues or projects in the long run
- educational research on school improvement will help to open up the black box of the school for health promotion professionals
- close scrutiny of systems characteristics such as the sociology/work lives of teachers may give us very practical and new starting points. For example, the research on teachers work lives and career paths tells us that they will always seek new lesson plans every year to refresh their practice) means that we should invest in skills training for the teachers rather providing a package and a school recipe (despite their requests for such quick answers when we first meet them) .
The remainder of this summary lists the key concepts related to integrating health promotion, safety, social development and other forms of human development within the mandates and constraints of school systems. We briefly describe these concepts, identify some of the policy, program and strategic implications and often call for more discussion, research and other forms of knowledge development.
Key Concepts/Agenda of Topics/Issues related to
Integrating Health, Safety, Environmental & Social Programs within School Systems
Integrating Health, Safety, Environmental & Social Programs within School Systems
Basic Functions of Schools
The five basic functions performed by schools for society (custody, literacy/ academic, vocational, socialization and selection/accreditation) will determine how school health, safety, environmental and social programs will fit within schools
School Reform vs School Improvement
While individual health and social projects and programs can easily be introduced as improvements or innovations in schools, the implementation and sustainability of comprehensive approaches and programs constitutes a reform of the system and becomes much more difficult. We also need to know why many school reformers are now using incremental “improvement” strategies.
Effective or Good Schools
What are the characteristics of educationally effective schools? To what extent are they compatible with school health, safety or social development? Are there conflicts or competing priorities?
Educational Change Theories and Models
How can school health, safety, environmental and social development advocates use the theories and models of education change developed by educators?
Congruence with current theories and models of learning
How can health, safety, environmental and social development programs use research and practice on learning (eg learning styles, constructivist approach, multiple intelligences, project learning, school cultures, reflective practice etc) when introducing their programs in schools?
Diverse Types and Sizes of Schools
Educational systems differentiate their plans and programs to accommodate variations in school size, location and physical characteristics. Should health, safety, environmental and social development programs not try to do the same thing?
Schools Serve Diverse Types of Communities
School systems recognize that different types of communities will have different aspirations for their schools and try to reflect this through various policies and program variations. Can health, safety, environmental and social development programs be adapted to fit within these variations already developed by educators?
Segmented Layers and Roles in School Systems
School systems in developed countries are structured in multiple layers, with national, state/provincial, regional and local neighbourhood entities. The roles within school systems are also differentiated with curriculum, student services, guidance, and other specialities. There are also several different categories of classroom teachers, including elementary. Middle school and senior high, PE, health and family studies specialists. School districts often have consultant specialists in PE, safety, student services, health, environmental studies and other assignments who are often asked to assume dual roles. How can health, safety, environmental and social development programs understand, then address what happens at these various layers? How can we understand the perceptions, professional expertise and experiences of the diverse number of professionals working in education in order to fit our programs within their defined duties and mandates?
The Sociological Makeup of Teachers
Understanding the sociological characteristics of teachers and the teaching profession is very important if they are to be willing to implement and sustain health, safety, environmental and social development programs. Many, if not most teachers, graduate from high school and university and return directly into schools without working in other industries. Many are hired by school districts similar to the one in which they experienced as students. Teachers are often nervous and untrained in cooperating with others outside the school and often do not have the time provided in their work day to cooperate r plan with colleagues.
The Work Lives and Career Paths of Educators
Schools systems often transfer school principals to new schools every few years. Good teachers will constantly be renewing and changing their lesson plans every year. One of the few professional prerogatives of the low status, high stress occupation of teachers is the ability to close the classroom door and deliver lessons they feel best match their needs of “their” students. Are the top-down, expert-driven, “teacher-proof approaches of many health and social programs congruent with these and other aspects of the work lives of educators?
Professional Norms in Education
Fairness, providing equal time and opportunity to all students (even those doing well), maintaining social control of your class, not discussing work in the staffroom (where colleagues are recharging their emotional batteries in between classes that require them to be attentive to all students), not getting too personally involved with students and more. All of these are deeply engrained professional norms that are rarely examined explicitly in research, nor planned for in health, safety, environmental and social development programs. Isn’t it time that we did so?
Socio-political norms and ideologies that govern and constrain schools and educators
Health, safety, environmental and social programs need to understand how schools respond to underlying norms and ideologies. These include concepts such as parental rights, family privacy, contradictions between equal educational opportunity vs equal educational results and more.
Educator perceptions of health, social development, safety & similar programs
Occasionally, there are studies of educator perceptions of different types of health, safety, environmental and social development programs. But these tend to be isolated and specific to a health topic. Can we accumulate research and develop knowledge about this issue to develop a deeper understanding. Can we engage educators in this process more fully?
Teacher Education: Pre-service Training
Most education faculties do not offer a health education option because HE is often taught by a variety of teachers. Consequently, attempts to better prepare classroom teachers has often been reduced to classes and projects and workshops as part of other courses. Can we take a systematic approach that looks at the entire pre-service program and seek to influence how universities recruit prospective teachers, how they design courses such as child development, school law and others, how they assign student teachers to schools in their practicum, if and how they can offer special graduate certificates and more.
Teacher & Staff Development Models and Methods
The strategies for skill and knowledge development among teachers have changed significantly. Professional mentoring, communities of practice, self-direction, and other strategies are now used widely in education. Have the experts in the health, safety and other sectors adapted to these new strategies or are we will using top-down strategies where experts tell teachers what and how to teach?
The Front-Line and Middle Manager: School Principal/Headmaster
Many education studies, as well as an increasing number of studies from other sectors have noted that support from the school principal as the educational leader in the school is critical. However, we need to delve more deeply into the roles, training, perceptions and current work assignments of these front-line managers. We need to start with the research already done in the education sector.
School Structures, Organization, Routines
Recent work on nutrition and physical activity and nutrition has recognized that school routines such as recess and lunch as well as using food and exercise as rewards and punishment are important. LGBT students and their parents are now challenging schools who don’t allow equal participation in important school rituals such as school proms. Graduation and award ceremonies in schools can recognize a variety of forms of student success and not simply those related to academics and athletics. The age at which younger students mix with senior high school students has significant consequences on youth risk behaviours. The use of teams and home room advisors as well as streaming in schools will also have health and social consequences. Increasingly, schools and other sectors are paying attention to the increased vulnerabilities associated with transitions from elementary to secondary school and from high school to work, training or college/university studies. All of these bits and pieces need to be examined and a coherent understanding developed for program planners and decision-makers.
The Characteristics of School Systems
There is increasing interest and attention being paid to ecological and systems-based approaches to school health, safety, environmental and social development programs. There are a number of specific aspects that relate to characteristics such as openness, loose-coupling, professional bureaucracies and managing across multiple systems. These include aspects such as adopter concerns, non-rational-decision-making, organizational cultures and readiness to innovate, social networks within organizations and more.
The Complex Nature of School Ecologies
Complexity and complexity theory are emerging as a major challenge to the linear thinking and controlled trials of most of the research on school health, safety, environmental and social development programs. New research methods such as multi-level modelling, narrative inquiry, realist reviews and others are gaining greater acceptance. As well, attempts to codify different types of professional experience into hierarchies similar to those used with more formal research are being made.
Accountability and Improvement Processes in Education
Most educational systems in developed countries monitor the results of their schools in these ways:
· they appoint or have elected local school trustees who oversee the management of schools and prepare various reports
· national or state/provincial examinations in core subjects (excluding health/personal-social development, family studies and physical education)
· participation in international or national tests (some with higher stakes associated with funding) that measure achievement in reading, math, science and sometimes technology
· mandatory development of school and school district annual improvement plans and reporting
· mandatory reporting of violent incidents and suspensions
· mandatory monitoring of school participation and dropout rates
· participation in state or provincial parent and sometimes student satisfaction surveys
How can we integrate health, safety, environmental and social development programs into these education evaluation processes?
Working with whole school models developed by educators
The school systems around the world have developed several whole school and comprehensive approaches. These include social and emotional learning, positive behaviour support, inclusive schools, community schools and effective schools. Can the proponents of comprehensive approaches derived from the health, law enforcement, welfare and environmental sectors integrate their favoured interventions and programs within these models rather than asking schools to adopt a whole new approach?
Working with other comprehensive approaches, coordinated agency-school programs and whole school strategies
There are many school multiple intervention plans and programs that have developed from various non-education sectors to delivery through, with or in schools. These include healthy schools (health sector), full service schools/communities in schools (welfare sector), safe schools (law enforcement) and eco schools (environmental sector). And there are multiple variations within those sectors (eg nutrition friendly schools, active schools, drug free schools, child friendly schools, etc within health). Schools become overwhelmed when each movement approaches them with a vast array of planning guides, lesson plans, policy advice and more. Given specific nature of the problems being addressed and actions required, the interests and momentum and credibility of these various models, it is not possible, nor preferable to simply combine everything into one super model. However, it is possible for the advocates of these various models to identify synergistic combinations of programs and partnerships and bring these to educators?
Sustainable Models and Planning from the Outset to Assure Educators
Sustainability has emerged as a critical issue in school health promotion practice and research. Educators are now much more sceptical about other sectors simply dumping their problems and mandates onto schools. Can those sectors define their ongoing roles and what funding, staffing or other resources they will bring into the schools more clearly before they approach schools? Can we define the minimum (rather than optimum) levels of interventions more clearly and determine if they are sustainable before we begin? For example, what is the minimum time needed for each health topic? How does that fit within a 50 hour per year maximum allocation of health instruction time per year?
Using a capacity-building approach to strengthen integration within school mandates and constraints
Educators will be assured about the intent of other sectors if they approach schools with a capacity building strategy. This includes operational capacities such as coordinated policy, assigned coordinators, mechanisms to encourage cooperation, ongoing support for joint knowledge exchange and workforce development, joint monitoring and reporting, joint strategic planning and an explicit sustainability plan. As well, other sectors should be prepared to define and implement baseline capacities in terms of the staffing and funding support they will provide to work with schools.
References
Colquhoun D (2005) Complexity and the Health Promoting School, In S. Clift & B.B. Jensen (Eds.), The health promoting school: International advances in theory, evaluation and practice, Copenhagen, Danish University of Education Press
International School Health Network (2009) Schools for All: Synthesis Statement on the Social Role of the School in Human Development, Surrey, BC, Author
Keshavarz N, Nutbeam D, Rowling L, Khavarpour F.(2010) Schools as social complex adaptive systems: a new way to understand the challenges of introducing the health promoting schools concept. Soc Sci Med. 2010 May;70(10):1467-74.
McCall DS (2006) An Ecological and Systems Approach to School Health Promotion: A More Balanced Approach for Greater Sustainability and Effectiveness Findings from a Wide Scan of the Published Research. Canadian Council on Learning, School Health Research Network
Paulus P (2005) From the Health Promoting School to the Good & Healthy School, In S. Clift & B.B. Jensen (Eds.), The health promoting school: International advances in theory, evaluation and practice, Copenhagen, Danish University of Education Press
Rowling L, Jeffreys V (2006) Capturing complexity: integrating health and education research to inform health-promoting schools policy and practice HEALTH EDUCATION RESEARCH Vol.21 no.5 705–718
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