Making every school a Health-Promoting School
In 2021 the United Nations agencies responsible for health and education: the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a new initiative “Making Every School a Health-Promoting School”. Central to this initiative was the development of the first ever Global Standards for Health-Promoting Schools and accompanying Implementation Guidance. Commissioned by the WHO and UNESCO, this work was led by researchers at the Centre for Adolescent Health.
Health-Promoting Schools and other comprehensive approaches to school health have been shown to have positive impacts on adolescent health and health behaviours. The development of the Global Standards for Health-Promoting Schools brings a systems lens, recognising that schools themselves are systems within which opportunities for health promotion, as part of quality education, can be amplified when multiple levers are aligned. The Global Standards also provide a common framework for the health and education sectors to accelerate global progress and implementation of Health-Promoting Schools.
Click here to learn more about the Global Standards and how they were developed.
Evaluation of a Health-Promoting Schools training program
In 2023, the Centre for Adolescent Health (CAH), in partnership with the Victorian Department of Education, developed and piloted a training program in Victorian Secondary Schools aimed at building capacity among school health and education professionals for whole-school approaches to health promotion. As settings where young people spend a large part of their day, schools can have a big impact on young people’s health, wellbeing and educational outcomes.
The online program, which was informed by the WHO and UNESCO’s Global Standards for Health-Promoting Schools and was evaluated as part of a wider research project funded by the Australian Department of Education through the Emerging Priorities Program.
Click here to read about the key findings from our training program pilot.
Investing in Health-Promoting School Systems
Click here to read our accompanying post on how the CAH has been working with the WHO to develop evidence-informed resources for school systems on key health issues affecting adolescents including:
Water Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH)
For more information about the Health Promoting Schools work visit https://www.rch.org.au/cah/research/Health_Promoting_Schools/