GradNation Community Summits
Health and Wellness Toolkit
Guide Content
1. Introduction
2. Resources and Best Practices (GradNation.org)
3. Speaker Recommendations
4. Additional Alliance Partners
5. Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
6. Summit Conveners
1. Introduction
Many of the conditions that influence attendance, behavior and academic performance are correlated with whether or not students are healthy, engaged and safe. Unmet physical, mental, and emotional health issues including - asthma, vision deficiencies, hunger, pregnancy, repeated exposure to traumatic stress such as violence, and other poverty-generated factors (also known as “social determinants of health”) will impact a student’s ability to succeed academically.
Once a student disconnects and drops out of high school, the cycle of poverty and poor health outcomes as an adult is activated. Dropouts are more likely not to have health insurance or access to care and therefore die at younger ages as adults from chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, infection, lung disease, and diabetes, than their peers who graduated. And the children of mothers who drop out are twice as likely to die before age 1 and six times as likely to suffer from poor health all their lives, if they survive (adapted from The American Public Health Association).
2. Resources and Best Practices
Visit the Health and Wellness Channel at GradNation.org where you will find a large variety of resources and best practices on this topic.
3. Speaker recommendations
Below is a sampling of speaker recommendations for this topic. The contact information may be included for a speaker, but if you would like to find out more about a specific speaker or discuss additional speaker options, please contact your Summit Manager.
The American Public Health Association (APHA) promotes graduation as a public health priority for several reasons. Following are three of the most compelling. First, many of the conditions that influence attendance, behavior, and academic performance are correlated with whether or not students are healthy, engaged, and safe. Second, students who drop out tend to die as at a younger age upon reaching adulthood from chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, infection, lung disease, and diabetes, than their peers who graduated. Third, research indicates that the children of mothers who drop out are twice as likely to die before age 1 and six times as likely to suffer from poor health all their lives, if they survive. APHA’s programmatic and policy efforts are spearheaded by its Center for School, Health and Education.
Our suggested speakers include Terri Wright, Director of The Center for School, Health, and Education, and Leslie Parks, Deputy Director of The Center for School, Health and Education. Other recommended speakers are Dr. Charles Basch, Professor of Health and Education at Teachers College at Columbia University, and Dr. Jeanita Richardson, health and learning researcher and associate professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine.
Contact Information: Call (202) 777-2482 or visit www.schoolbasedhealthcare.org
Nora L Howley is currently the Acting Executive Director and Manager of Programs for the National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN). She brings work experience that combines work in public education and health over a 25+ year career. At NEA HIN, she oversees the program work that seeks to create healthy school environments for NEA’s over 3 million members, their families, and the children they serve. From February 2006-January 2008, she worked with Action for Healthy Kids, a national non-profit focused on changing the school environment to address child obesity and undernourishment. Prior to joining Action for Healthy Kids, Ms. Howley was with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), where she served as the Director of the School Health Project, which focused on addressing the non-academic barriers to learning faced by the nation’s children. She has served on a number of national boards and committees including the Board of Directors of Action for Healthy Kids, the steering committee of National Coordinating Committee on School Health, and the National Advisory Board of the National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity. She has extensive experience as a speaker and trainer. She has an M.A. in Health Education from the University of Maryland, College Park, where her research focused on risk perception in occupational health training programs, and a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Wheelock College in Boston, MA.
Share Our Strength: No child should grow up hungry in America, but one in five children struggles with hunger. Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign is ending childhood hunger in America by ensuring all children get the healthy food they need, every day. The No Kid Hungry campaign connects kids in need with nutritious food and teaches their families how to cook healthy, affordable meals. The campaign also engages the public to make ending childhood hunger a national priority.
Contact Information: Please contact your summit manager they can connect you with Share Our Strength to shepherd speaker requests among a variety of Share Our Strength key leaders on numerous topics.
4. Additional Alliance Partners
View our list of Alliance Partners for information about their work and for potential local engagement and/or strategy development regarding your summit. If you would like to make a connection, contact your Summit Manager at America’s Promise, who can help facilitate an introduction.
5. Multi-Media and Suggested Reading
Healthy Food Shortage: How Cities Can Use Federal Meals Programs to Reduce Childhood Hunger and Obesity is a free, hour-long webinar hosted by the YEF Institute:
http://www.nlc.org/build-skills-and-networks/education-and-training/event-calendar/healthy-food-shortage-how-cities-can-use-federal-meals-programs-to-reduce-childhood-hunger-and-obesity
National Bike to School Day Aims to Promote Health, Safer routes:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2013/05/national_bike_to_school_day_aims_to_promote_health_safer_routes.html
NPT Reports: Good Food= Better Students:
http://wnpt.org/nptreports/2012/07/10/npt-reports-good-food-better-students/
Oyler School as community learning center, focused on the whole child and providing health, security, and learning:
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/one-school-one-year/leading-change-oyler-school
Poverty Feature – Factors in Dropping Out: Poverty
http://americangraduate.org/dropout-factors/poverty
Preventing Summertime Hunger: http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/afterschoolsnack/ASnack.cfm?idBlog=EFD7E165-215A-A6B3-029B84AD1F3DE276
Providing Youth with Easy Actions from Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign:
http://nokidhungry2.org/
Health and Wellness Toolkit 3