[YSPNetwork] Health, Mental Health & Safety Guidelines for Schools

[Donna NOONAN]

YSPNetworkers,
 
The Health, Mental Health & Safety Guidelines for Schools include
suicide prevention and many other health and safety issues. Please see
the links below. I received this from another listserv and thought you
would be interested, especially if you work in or with schools.
 
The guidelines below address school suicide prevention. The link
directly to the recommendation addressing suicide is at: 
http://www.nationalguidelines.org/guideline.cfm?guideNum=7-04&pageRefresh=true

 
>===== Original Message From "Kavanagh, Laura (HRSA)"
<LKavanagh at HRSA.GOV>
=====
When you are asked by a school board member about the best way to
organize the district's physical education programs, by a parent about
the best way to protect children from playground injuries and from
traffic on school parking lot and pick-up points, by a school nurse
about getting families engaged in school health programs, and by a
principal about how to reduce the chances of mosquito bites and
inset-vector infections around the school yard, do you have a one-stop
resource guide where you can find all the answers? The answer now is YES
with the availability of the Health, Mental Health and Safety Guidelines
for Schools (HMHSGS).
 
Schools are assuming an increasingly important role in health
promotion, disease prevention, and injury prevention in the lives of
children and adolescents.  To help schools deal with issues that vary
from violence to substance abuse to obesity, more than 300 health,
mental health, safety, school health and education professionals joined
together in developing the HMHSGS.  The project was led by the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the National Association of School
Nurses (NASN), with funding from the Health Resources and Services
Administration/Maternal and Child Health Bureau (HRSA/MCHB).
 
The purpose of the HMHSGS, which was released in June 2005, is to help
those who influence the health, mental health and safety of students and
school staff while they are in school, on school grounds, on their way
to or from school, or involved in school-sponsored activities. The
guidelines are prepared for those who play a role in the assessment,
planning, or improvement of school health and safety programs, including
school administrators, school board members, parents, school health
professionals, educators, community leaders, legislators at all levels,
professionals in government agencies (e.g., education, health, safety,
transportation, justice, and labor) and students.
 
This compendium of guidelines is likely to become a major resource, if
not the very first resource one turns, for anyone who is trying to
improve school health in their state, district or local school. Never
before has one school health document provided guidelines on so many
different aspects of school health and had this depth of
inter-professional collaboration.
 
Topics included in the HMHSGS are:
* Overarching School Health and Safety Issues
* Family and Community Involvement
* Health and Mental Health Services
* Health and Safety Education
* Nutrition and Food Services
* Physical Education
* Physical Environment and Transportation
* Social Environment
* Staff Health and Safety
 
Health, mental health, and safety are inextricably linked to student
achievement.  Poor nutrition, impaired vision or hearing, dental pain,
sleep deficiency, substance abuse, anxiety about home life, anxiety
about relations with peers and exposure to violence are examples of
health and safety issues associated with low achievement in school.
Complementary to the idea of optimizing health, mental health and safety
to improve student achievement, is the understanding that an educated
public benefits the health and safety of the population.
 
The guidelines are available for free download at
http://www.schoolhealth.org <http://www.schoolhealth.org/>  or
www.nationalguidelines.org. Users may also print out hard copies of the
guidelines off the Web site by chapters. We hope you find the guidelines
helpful as you continue to work on behalf of our school-aged children.
 
Thank you.   Stephanie Bryn, MPH
HMHSGS Project Officer
 
 
 
 
 
Donna G. Noonan, MPH, CHES
Youth Suicide Prevention Coordinator
Injury Prevention & Epidemiology Program
800 NE Oregon, Ste 772
Portland, OR 97232
Phone: 503-872-5332
Fax: 503-731-4157 
donna.noonan at state.or.us
http://egov.oregon.gov/dhs/ipe/ysp
 
Join YSPNetwork, Youth Suicide Prevention listserv for the Pacific
Northwest at
http://listsmart.osl.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/yspnetwork
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