Comprehensive School Health Education Act

Schools and Health is a readable and well-organized book on comprehensive school health programs (CSHPs) for children in grades K-12. The book explores the needs of today's students and how those needs can be met through CSHP design and development. The committee provides broad recommendations for CSHPs, with suggestions and guidelines for national, state, and local actions. The volume examines how communities can become involved, explores models for CSHPs, and identifies elements of successful programs. Topics include: The history of and precedents for health programs in schools. The state of the art in physical education, health education, health services, mental health and pupil services, and nutrition and food services. Policies, finances, and other elements of CSHP infrastructure. Research and evaluation challenges. Schools and Health will be important to policymakers in health and education, school administrators, school physicians and nurses, health educators, social scientists, child advocates, teachers, and parents.

A market leader, this book continues to be the most thorough text and resource for preparing elementary-, middle-, and secondary-school instructors to teach health. Students who use this text in a methods class keep it both as a reference for student-teaching and throughout their teaching careers. They rely on the practical strategies and methods that the book provides, as well as on its comprehensive Curriculum Guide: an organized, sequential K-12 plan for teaching students the information and skills they need to become health-literate, to maintain and improve their health, to prevent disease, and to reduce risky health-related behaviors.

Children spend more time at school than anywhere else except home; thus, schools can have a major effect on children′s health by providing a healthy physical environment, serving meals and snacks built around sound nutritional guidelines, and teaching about health, as well as modeling and promoting healthy behaviors. School health services programs involve not only school nurses and focus not only on nursing practice, standards, and performance issues; they also include services and classes to teach students the information and skills they need to become health-literate, to maintain and improve their health, to prevent disease, and to reduce risky behaviors impacting health. School nurses, teachers, administrators, health coordinators, guidance counselors and social workers all join with parents in safeguarding and promoting the health and well-being of school-aged children as a basic foundation for academic success. The Encyclopedia of School Health offers quick access to health and wellness information most relevant to children in America′s K-12 school setting. You′ll find valuable guidance on developmental stages, acute and chronic illnesses, special education, nutrition, crisis response, prevention, and more.