This month, The Medical Care Blog is hosting a series of posts about the importance of school health. Following up on our 2016 series on the childhood roots of inequity (read the first in the series here), we are dedicating our Thursdays this month to posts that reflect on the health challenges that confront schools.
Schools have a big role in children’s lives
We look to schools not only to help develop our children academically, but to help them develop physically, socially, and emotionally. We want schools to encourage physical activity, support the development of important peer relationships, and to build skills and resilience for adulthood. At the same, time we worry about what schools are feeding children, whether they are safe, and whether bullying and mental health are adequately addressed.
Given these expectations, schools are probably some of the most complicated and deeply critiqued institutions in the US and around the world. They are tasked with supporting children in nearly every aspect of their lives.
Think of your own experiences in school. What do you remember about the friendships you developed, the stresses and anxieties you felt, the moments you enjoyed and those you didn’t? Consider how schools were able to support you, or not, in those experiences.
School staff know these challenges well and will strike to fix them
Teachers and other school staff know the 11 million children in the US who show up to school hungry. They teach the 4 million children who are uninsured and who may have little or no access to primary care and mental health services. And they work with the nearly 17% of children who experience a developmental disability, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
It is for these reasons, and not for their own salaries, that teachers in Chicago went on strike (successfully) last month as they sought to increase the numbers of support staff such as nurses and social workers. Teachers around the country are stretched thin, and the absence of these kinds of support staff can have major implications for student learning and teacher workloads.
This school health series covers these kinds of issues
Starting later this week, we will be sharing posts about health policy challenges as they relate to schools. We will cover how schools are pursuing physical activity safety, assuring adequate nutrition in schools, and screening children for the social determinants of health. We’ll also talk about how changing education funding methods could better support mental health care.
On November 20 each year, we celebrate World Children’s Day. In 1954, the United Nations established this day to promote a greater sense of International togetherness and to enhance children’s welfare worldwide. It was on that day in 1959 that the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and in 1989 when it adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Both resolutions called for special attention to child education, and the safety and quality of the settings in which this occurs. Seventy years on, The Medical Care Blog is proud to dedicate a month of posts to support this agenda.
Read the full series here:
Part 1—Everything’s Coming up ACEs (by Kevin Fang)
Part 2—Athletic Trainers in Schools: An Unexpected Battleground for Scope of Practice (by Fareed Dibazar)
Part 3—Three Strikes for Student Health (a post on mental health services by Haley Nelson)
Part 4—The National School Lunch Program: Wasteful or Worth it? (by Sarina Patel)
Gregory Stevens