The Road Ahead For Health In Schools
by Carson Cook, Manager of Policy & Growth at The Primary School
Exciting news for those invested in the intersection of health and education: the National Healthy Schools Collaborative (NHSC), a newly formed national coalition of major school and health stakeholders, has just released their Ten-Year Roadmap for Healthy Schools. Comprising over a dozen organizations — including Kaiser Permanente (our health partner for The Primary School East Bay) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (our Medical Director, Ryan Padrez, served as one of AAP’s representatives at the Collaborative) — the NHSC recognizes that a child’s mental, physical, social, and emotional wellness drastically impacts their ability to learn, and that systemic inequities in the educational system affect the health-learning relationship and contribute significantly to the opportunity gap.
The Roadmap proposes a multi-faceted blueprint for addressing these inequities and increasing the potential for more healthy (and healthier) schools, with opportunities at the federal, state, and local level. We are especially thrilled about the release of the Roadmap because of how well many of the recommended priorities align with our philosophy and mission. A few examples:
“Create shared goals that recognize the importance and interdependence of all elements of a healthy school.” One of the key issues The Primary School model seeks to address is the siloing of necessary support services for children and families — the persistent lack of effective and efficient communication between schools and health providers in particular frequently leads to missed opportunities to address learning and health needs. We commend the NHSC for naming integration as an essential area of improvement.
“Bolster the quality of local health systems, health care services, and social service organizations’ capacity to provide consistent primary care.” Lack of continuity and consistency for children’s health care remains a similarly prevalent and critical issue. Too often follow-up appointments, testing, and treatment fall through the cracks due to capacity concerns, socio-economic barriers, or unnecessary complexity of access. As a school model, we make investments in programs that work to help families navigate these systems, but reducing these barriers to health and learning through simplification and quality improvement should be a major priority.
“Support the public, particularly families, in becoming partners in strengthening health and learning outcomes.” Partnering with parents is one of the three crucial prongs of our theory of change, and as such we applaud the increasing importance being placed on ensuring that parents and caregivers are made equitable collaborators in promoting their children’s health and education. As the work of the NHSC moves forward, we hope to continue to see family wellbeing and partnership prioritized.
These are but a few of the priorities in the Roadmap, and while there’s sure to be debate about some of the proposed approaches, it’s clear that this sort of thinking, planning, and coalition-building is essential to continuing to improve learning and health opportunities for children and their families. We’re looking forward to seeing just how our work here at The Primary School will align with current and future partners in the space, and we’ll be paying close attention to the ongoing efforts of the NHSC.