Every local authority and Primary Care Trust in the South West of England involved in Healthy Schools Plus gathered today at the launch event to hear further plans for programme's regional roll out.
Healthy Schools Plus will be made available to all schools in the South West that have achieved the government’s National Healthy School Status, with the aim of helping to tackle some of the most pressing health issues. Funded by The Health Inequalities Unit (DH), Primary Care Trusts in the South West and the South West Strategic Health Authority, Healthy Schools Plus will provide an additional £5.5m in additional resources, advice and funding to participating schools between 2008-2011.
David Pearson, South West Healthy Schools Plus Manager, explains;
"The South West region has already been tremendously successful in implementing the National Healthy Schools Programme where 80% of our schools have firmly embedded its values and already achieved National Healthy School Status."
The programme will particularly focus on targeting support to schools where health needs are greatest initially, aiming to close the gap between children and young people who experience the best and worst of health in the South West region.
All participating schools will choose three priority areas to work, within the guidelines of the SW Healthy Schools Plus framework. They are:
- A local priority which is clearly connected to local needs such as reducing teenage pregnancy, childhood obesity or drug and alcohol misuse;
- A school priority which all members of the school community, especially children and young people themselves, will have identified; and
- A specific group of children and young people who face challenging circumstances, such as children in care, young carers or children who have been bereaved.
As the first programme of its kind anywhere in England, the programme will help inform how future developments to the National Healthy Schools Programme are rolled out across the country.
Peter Cloke, Director of Children and Learners, Government Office South West, added;
“For me, one of the real strengths of this programme is that it is grounded in local health and education partnerships, and the fact that so many of our schools have chosen to work with the programme, highlights to me just how timely and important it is in supporting schools on their journey towards better meeting the needs of children and young people in the 21st Century School. I believe that this programme will play a vital role in enabling, in time, every child to reach their full potential.”
