Schools4Health

ended

Schools4Health strives to introduce, strengthen, and sustain the adoption of a participatory whole-of-school approach to health and wellbeing. It will raise awareness amongst policy makers and build the capacities of administrators and school staff across Europe to help mainstream them. It will also invest in ‘best practices’ that improve healthy lifestyles and health literacy and contribute to the common principles of the health promoting school (HPS) approach and other whole-of-school approaches. The consortium involves leading networks and experts in the fields of school health and health promotion. Public authorities, civil society actors and school communities in eight participating countries will work together to determine what is needed, and what can be done, also from a policy perspective, to mainstream these programmes. Schools4Health will invest directly in initiating or strengthening the overall HPS/whole school approaches in schools, through a process of exchange of policy and practice. It will invest, and directly engage approximately 16 schools across the EU in a process of selection, transfer, implementation and evaluation of best practices. These will focus on the areas of healthy food, physical activity, and mental health. All training materials, including a concise tool for policy makers and for practitioners will be included in an ‘online Hub Schools for Health and Well-being’. An advocacy and information campaign and other dissemination strategies will draw attention to the value of health promoting schools to resilience and recovery efforts in the face of COVID-19 and to the Hub..Schools4Health will demonstrate how HPS and other whole-school approaches to health not only put children and adolescents on a path to healthier lifestyles, but also improve educational outcomes and health literacy, and contribute to addressing inter-related societal challenges like social equity, climate change and environmental degradation.