School Health

EDC is facilitating a policy development project to promote mental health assessments and improve access to mental health services for youth suspended or expelled from California schools. After an analysis of current school district policies on suspension and expulsion from data and focus groups, EDC will determine policy and program recommendations that enable students to receive necessary mental health services in an effort to reduce dropout rates and disparities in access to services.

The MetroWest Youth Risk Behavior Survey is a ten-year initiative of the Massachusetts-based MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation to better understand and address the health needs of adolescents in the region. Surveys are being conducted biannually with middle and high school students. The first round of surveys was conducted in 2006, with over 16,000 high school students and 8,000 middle school students participating. Districts receive timely reports of their data along with technical assistance. Findings are used to identify problems, track trends, and inform local programming.

EDC/HHD is collaborating with Mith Samlanh, a local not-for-profit organization in Phnom Penh that runs programs for children orphaned by HIV and living on the streets. Through this partnership, Mith Samlanh works to reintegrate these children into society so that they are able to resume productive lives and leave the streets.

This project works with the Prevention Center of Palm Beach County, Florida—and other regions of the United States—to develop, implement, and evaluate a program to prevent violence and enhance school safety for all 36,000 middle school children in the county. EDC trains community police officers to deliver the curriculum, Aggressors, Victims, and Bystanders, and prepares them to become mentors and co-innovators in the program.

The Zambia QUESTT Project aims to improve the quality of basic education delivery systems and to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on children’s educational experiences (both in and out of government schools). To accomplish these objectives, QUESTT is leading several initiatives to improve teacher practice through the integration of Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) in government schools and technology-based interventions. These interventions include the use of video and cell phone communication for both in-service and preservice teacher support.

The Connecticut Health Foundation’s (CHF) 10 year strategic plan included a goal to decrease the number of children and youth (ages 6-14) from entering the Juvenile Justice System and/or the most intensive level of mental health treatment. To accomplish this goal, CHF created a grant program to support and promote a comprehensive community-based system of early screening, assessment, identification, and brief intervention.

Serving communities in the Three Areas, HEAR Sudan builds capacity of local stakeholders to plan, implement and monitor health and education services, helps translate this increased capacity into action, and builds community support for school governance and outreach. HEAR strengthens linkages between educators and health workers with the aim of increasing healthy girls’ and boys’ access to quality education.

The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention (National Center) provides technical assistance (TA) and training to 106 federally-funded Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) grantees and to six Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health) (PL) grantees.

EDC continues to expand its Teenage Health Teaching Modules (THTM), a comprehensive school health curriculum for grades 6 through 12 used in all 50 states and several countries. EDC is updating scientific content and making the modules responsive to the ethnic and cultural diversity of today’s classrooms. New materials include Getting Active and Eating Well and Voices Against Violence. THTM has been identified as a “promising” model program by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) enhances the nation’s mental health infrastructure by providing states, government agencies, private organizations, colleges and universities, and suicide survivor and mental health consumer groups with access to the science and experience that can support their efforts to develop programs, implement interventions, and promote policies to prevent suicide.