Healthy Alberta School Communities This slide will be what appears as delegates come back from a short break at the end of HKA. Marg will introduce Debby March 2007

HEALTHY KIDS ALBERTA! Healthy Alberta School Communities School Health and Wellness Manager position: Ever Active Schools: AHW initiatives AE initiatives Other Supportive School Health Promotion Programs and Services, e.g. Schools Come Alive, AADAC, ACHSC, AISI Positive Futures – Optimizing Mental Health for Alberta’s Children and Youth: A Framework for Action Welcome delegates. We appreciate all of you staying after a wonderful day of brainstorming to provide even more creative thinking to help make children and youth healthier in Alberta. I thought I would start with a quick lead in to the Healthy Alberta School Communities Initiative. You can find this diagram at the back of the Healthy Alberta School Communities handout. As you learned this morning HKA is the umbrella cross-ministry strategy for all children and youth 0 – 18 years. The Ministries of Education and Health and Wellness understand the importance of the school community in changing health behaviours of Alberta children and youth so they have partnered together to begin work in this area by hiring Marg Schwartz to be the School Health and Wellness Manager for both ministries. One way government has been supporting healthy schools for the past few years is through the Ever Active program. We are proud of the work that Doug Gleddie and the Health and Physical Education Council of the ATA have done to develop healthy school communities in Alberta. There are a number of other ways the ministries have supported school communities. Earlier today you heard about the five new healthy weights initiatives recently announced by AHW. Alberta Education has provided support to school communities through their established wellness related curricula and were the first Ministry in Canada to mandate 30 minutes of daily physical activity. Current research indicates that physical activity, healthy eating and mental well-being are three health issues that school communities can effectively impact. These issues will be used to focus the discussions today. HASC STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS Leadership Review/Research Innovation Partnership Shared Learning HASC PRIORITY WELLNESS ISSUES Healthy Eating Physical Activity Mental Well-being LONG-TERM INTENDED RESULT Improved health and learning outcomes for school-aged children and youth.

Strategic Directions Leadership Review/Research Innovation There have been 5 strategic directions that have been identified to provide a framework for discussion today. These strategic directions include: Leadership: As described in the handout provided, this strategic direction looks at, Provincial leadership and guidance to increase the ability of school jurisdictions and school communities to embrace health-promoting policies and practices. But we must remember that lots of things can be determined to be policy…there is large p policy, like the implementation of DPA. Or mandatory curricula such as physical education, K-9 Health and Life skills or CALM. And there is small p policy which might be a rule within a school classroom students cannot not bring pop to class. Leadership is demonstrated by parents, teachers, students, administrators or government. Review and Research: This refers to, Gathering evidence-based practice, increasing linkages between research and practice, and providing ongoing evaluation of the impact of the HASC strategic directions. The review of current practice and support for research will lead to evidence that determines best practice for improving the health and learning outcomes for children and youth. Innovation: The definition of insanity is to repeat the same practice over and over and expect different results. We need to “Provide opportunities for school communities to develop innovative strategies at the local level and recognize and reward champions of healthy school communities” in order to engage students in healthy behaviours.

Strategic Directions Partnership Shared Learning Partnership: In the handout provided, we describe this strategic direction as Aligning and harmonizing relevant initiatives to facilitate access to programs and services, foster partnership development, support related government ministries’ strategies and programs, and increase capacity to address health and wellness at the local level. It is important to build on the many programs, services, initiatives and strategies within the province already, by strengthening the partnerships between parents, health professionals, school staff, community programs and services. The coordinated efforts will have a greater impact on the health of children and youth. Shared Learning: The last strategic direction addresses the importance of, Facilitating opportunities for sharing credible and consistent information related to health promotion in schools to meet the needs of diverse target audiences. In Alberta we are fortunate to have pockets of excellence for school health promotion from which we can learn and share a wealth of knowledge. We need to identify ways for sharing this information so we can learn from one another in order to build healthy school communities across Alberta. I encourage you to use the handout provided today to guide your discussions as we work our way through the next hour.

For More Information Please contact: Margaret Schwartz @ (780) 644-5274 Email at Margaret.Schwartz@gov.ab.ca Gail Diachuk @(780) 415-2750 Email at Gail.Diachuk@gov.ab.ca Please feel free to contact either Marg or Gail if you would like further information after today’s session. I will turn the podium back to Marg now and would just like to thank you again for participating in this stakeholder session and providing your expertise to Alberta Education and Alberta Health and Wellness.