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News Archives
Hot Topics:
Posted 10/08/2007
Reframing School Dropout as a Public Health
Issue
by Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, Jessica Ruglis
Although evidence shows that education is an important determinant
of health and that changes in school policy can improve educational
outcomes, public health professionals have seldom made improving
school
completion rates a health priority. In addition, poor health
interferes
with children’s capacity for education, and a variety
of school-based
health interventions have the potential to improve school
achievement.
Go
to article.
Posted 9/26/2007
New Eating Smart and Moving More Brochures
The Missouri Coordinated School Health Coalition
has updated these brochures.
Posted 8/1/2007
The Quick & Easy
Guide to School Wellness
Healthy Schools Campaign and School Health
Corp. are pleased to announce the
release of "The
Quick & Easy Guide to School Wellness",
a multimedia how-to
guide filled with comprehensive information, practical advice,
tools and
resources. The guide made its debut at the National Association
of School
Nurses conference in Nashville, Tenn. with positive and enthusiastic
reviews
from school nurse leaders in attendance. Nearly 500 school
nurses requested
the guide in the first two days of its release, and hundreds
of additional
school stakeholders have ordered the guide since its release.
The guide,
available free of charge to schools and nonprofits, was developed
in
response to a need for school stakeholders -- nurses, teachers,
parents,
administrators and students -- to effectively implement the
school wellness
policies that became mandatory in fall 2006. The guide includes
multiple
case studies, bonus tip sheets, and a comprehensive set of
documents and
resources from leading organizations throughout the country.
"We
want people
to understand that they have the power to make their school
wellness policy
work, to really change things for the better," said
Jean Saunders, director
of school wellness for the Healthy Schools Campaign. "It
doesn't have to be
overwhelming. This guide brings together the most important
resources in one
place and makes it easy to create healthy change one step
at a time."
News Archives
Kids Count Data Book
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released
the 18th annual KIDS
COUNT Data Book, a national and state-by-state
effort to track the status
of children
in the U.S. By providing policymakers and citizens with
benchmarks of child
well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and
national
discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for
all children.
This
year's essay examines the child welfare system and challenges
the country to
focus on the 726,000 children who spend time in foster
care each year and to
build and strengthen family relationships. Taking up
the challenge of
protecting these most-at-risk children requires a re-examination
of the
purpose and goals of the nation's child welfare systems.
The goal of getting
vulnerable children "out of harm's way" remains
central to the public's
understanding of what the child welfare system does.
This
task is enormously
difficult, as we are all too often reminded by the
highly publicized
tragedies of children known to local protective services
-- or even removed
from their families and placed in foster care -- who
nevertheless come to
grave harm. Child welfare practitioners and researchers
continue their
struggle to improve the likelihood that we can accurately
identify dangerous
situations and intervene to protect children when,
if not before, they are
in serious danger. But the harsh truth is that simply
removing children from
dangerous homes does not, by itself, ensure that they
will receive the
protection, nurturing, structure, and stability that
they need to grow up
healthy and successful.
Too often, the opposite is
true. For many children,
family separation is hurtful and traumatic -- even
when the family has
consistently not met their needs. And for far too
many, their experience in
the child welfare system only compounds this trauma.
Child welfare systems
too often make placement decisions that unnecessarily
add to the confusion,
insecurity, and isolation felt by kids removed from
their families.
News Archives
Posted 1/31/2007
Missouri School Health Profiles 1994-2004,
Missouri Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education
The School
Health Profiles monitor the status of health
education,
policies and programs in public schools at the middle, junior
and senior
high school levels. The profiles are a random sample of all
regular
secondary public schools having at least one of the grades
6 through 12.
The survey is conducted in the spring of even-numbered years.
News Archives
Posted 1/31/2007
Missouri Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1995-2005, Missouri
Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education
The YRBS monitors specific behaviors among high school students
that
contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality.
These
behaviors fall into six categories: 1) behaviors that contribute
to
unintentional injuries and violence, 2) tobacco use, 3) alcohol
and
other drug use, 4) sexual behaviors that result in unintended
pregnancies, 5) unhealthy dietary behaviors, and 6) physical
inactivity.
News Archives
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