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Why is such a diverse group of agencies and organizations promoting FRESH? |
Recognizing the fundamental inter-relationship between health and education, and the urgent need to reduce and control the effects of HIV and AIDS, school health experts at UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, Education International, Education Development Center and the Partnership for Child Development came together to develop a basic framework for comprehensive school health programming named FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health). By agreeing upon a common language for describing school health activities, and endorsing a common set of recommendations for school health programming, the FRESH co-sponsors aimed to work more effectively together and with education authorities at all levels to improve the quantity and quality of school-based health programmes. The FRESH initiative was launched at the Dakar World Education Forum in April 2000 as a strategy for achieving Education for All. Since then, FRESH has been recognized by a variety of other agencies and initiatives, including the World Food Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Roll Back Malaria, the Child-to-Child Trust and others.
How is FRESH related to other health promotion initiatives?
FRESH is not a new programme, or even a programme at all. It is a framework for the design and implementation of effective school health programmes which represents a 'boiling down' to basics of the co-sponsor agencies' combined experience in the area of school health. Thus, it is fully consistent with other school health promotion activities of these agencies. For example:
WHO's Global School Health Initiative
In 1995, the World Health Organization launched what is known as the Global School Health Initiative. Through this initiative, WHO and its partner agencies seek to mobilize and strengthen health promotion and education activities at the local, national, regional and global levels. Its goal is to increase the number of schools that can truly be called "Health-Promoting Schools". Although definitions will vary, depending on need and circumstance, a Health-Promoting School can be characterized as a school constantly strengthening its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working. A Health-Promoting School:- fosters health and learning with all measures at its disposal.
- engages health and education officials, teachers, students, parents and community leaders in efforts to promote health.
- strives to provide a healthy environment, school health education and school health services along with school/community projects and outreach, health promotion programmes for staff, nutrition and food safety programmes, opportunities for physical education and recreation and programmes for counselling, social support and mental health promotion.
- implements policies, practices and other measures that respect an individual's self-esteem, provide multiple opportunities for success and acknowledge good efforts and intentions as well as personal achievements.
- strives to improve the health of school personnel, families and community members as well as students; and works with community leaders to help them understand how the community contributes to health and education.
UNICEF's Child-friendly Schools initiative
FRESH is also fully consistent with the framework established by UNICEF for rights-based, child friendly educational systems, and schools that are characterized as being healthy for children, effective with children, protective of children, and involved with families, communities -- and children. Activities across the four core components of the FRESH framework help schools to establish a basic foundation from which to attain the five quality standards of a "child friendly school". This includes:- the quality of the learners and their experiences and needs;
- the relevance of the curriculum content and processes;
- the quality of the classroom and broader school environment; and
- the appropriateness of assessment and achievement of learning outcomes in areas such as literacy, numeracy, knowledge, attitudes and skills for life.
The Child-to-Child Trust’s Children for Health Methodology
Through the Supporting Strategies, FRESH recommends that children be actively involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of school health programming. In particular, FRESH supports the Methodology for Learning by Doing advocated by the Child-to-Child Trust. This approach is based on experience that shows that children can play a unique role in protecting and promoting health, both for themselves and for others. It calls for children's learning to be linked with their everyday lives - at home and in their communities - so that knowledge translates into behaviour and action. It provides a model for teaching and learning about health that calls for a number of linked activities, or "steps", through which children are helped by adults to think about health issues, make decisions, develop life-skills and take action to promote health in their communities. As they progress through these learning “steps”, children:- Choose and Understand - Children identify and assess their health problems and priorities.
- Find out More - Children undertake research activities to better understand how a particular health issue affects them and their communities.
- Discuss Findings and Plan Action - Based on their findings, children plan action that they can take individually or together to address the identified problems.
- Take Action - Children take action with the support they have themselves identified as needed from adults.
- Evaluate - Children evaluate the action they took: What went well? What was difficult? Has any change been achieved?
- Do it better - Based on their evaluation, children think of ways to keep the action going and/or improve it.
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Recognizing the fundamental inter-relationship between health and education, and the urgent need to reduce and control the effects of HIV and AIDS, school health experts at UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, Education International, Education Development Center and the Partnership for Child Development came together to develop a basic framework for comprehensive school health programming named FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health). By agreeing upon a common language for describing school health activities, and endorsing a common set of recommendations for school health programming, the FRESH co-sponsors aimed to work more effectively together and with education authorities at all levels to improve the quantity and quality of school-based health programmes. The FRESH initiative was launched at the Dakar World Education Forum in April 2000 as a strategy for achieving Education for All. Since then, FRESH has been recognized by a variety of other agencies and initiatives, including the World Food Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Roll Back Malaria, the Child-to-Child Trust and others.
How is FRESH related to other health promotion initiatives?
FRESH is not a new programme, or even a programme at all. It is a framework for the design and implementation of effective school health programmes which represents a 'boiling down' to basics of the co-sponsor agencies' combined experience in the area of school health. Thus, it is fully consistent with other school health promotion activities of these agencies. For example:
WHO's Global School Health Initiative
In 1995, the World Health Organization launched what is known as the Global School Health Initiative. Through this initiative, WHO and its partner agencies seek to mobilize and strengthen health promotion and education activities at the local, national, regional and global levels. Its goal is to increase the number of schools that can truly be called "Health-Promoting Schools". Although definitions will vary, depending on need and circumstance, a Health-Promoting School can be characterized as a school constantly strengthening its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working. A Health-Promoting School:- fosters health and learning with all measures at its disposal.
- engages health and education officials, teachers, students, parents and community leaders in efforts to promote health.
- strives to provide a healthy environment, school health education and school health services along with school/community projects and outreach, health promotion programmes for staff, nutrition and food safety programmes, opportunities for physical education and recreation and programmes for counselling, social support and mental health promotion.
- implements policies, practices and other measures that respect an individual's self-esteem, provide multiple opportunities for success and acknowledge good efforts and intentions as well as personal achievements.
- strives to improve the health of school personnel, families and community members as well as students; and works with community leaders to help them understand how the community contributes to health and education.
UNICEF's Child-friendly Schools initiative
FRESH is also fully consistent with the framework established by UNICEF for rights-based, child friendly educational systems, and schools that are characterized as being healthy for children, effective with children, protective of children, and involved with families, communities -- and children. Activities across the four core components of the FRESH framework help schools to establish a basic foundation from which to attain the five quality standards of a "child friendly school". This includes:- the quality of the learners and their experiences and needs;
- the relevance of the curriculum content and processes;
- the quality of the classroom and broader school environment; and
- the appropriateness of assessment and achievement of learning outcomes in areas such as literacy, numeracy, knowledge, attitudes and skills for life.
The Child-to-Child Trust’s Children for Health Methodology
Through the Supporting Strategies, FRESH recommends that children be actively involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of school health programming. In particular, FRESH supports the Methodology for Learning by Doing advocated by the Child-to-Child Trust. This approach is based on experience that shows that children can play a unique role in protecting and promoting health, both for themselves and for others. It calls for children's learning to be linked with their everyday lives - at home and in their communities - so that knowledge translates into behaviour and action. It provides a model for teaching and learning about health that calls for a number of linked activities, or "steps", through which children are helped by adults to think about health issues, make decisions, develop life-skills and take action to promote health in their communities. As they progress through these learning “steps”, children:- Choose and Understand - Children identify and assess their health problems and priorities.
- Find out More - Children undertake research activities to better understand how a particular health issue affects them and their communities.
- Discuss Findings and Plan Action - Based on their findings, children plan action that they can take individually or together to address the identified problems.
- Take Action - Children take action with the support they have themselves identified as needed from adults.
- Evaluate - Children evaluate the action they took: What went well? What was difficult? Has any change been achieved?
- Do it better - Based on their evaluation, children think of ways to keep the action going and/or improve it.
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The Organization
