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Comprehensive School Health

Your school community has taken action to promote health and wellness, and you are starting to see some positive changes resulting from these efforts. It is now time to celebrate and share your successes with your school and community.

Take time to recognize and celebrate the people who were involved in your initiative and the successes that were achieved. This is an important part of building and sustaining a healthy school community.

Celebrate and Share Your Successes!

Why is it important to celebrate and share successes?Building a healthy school community is an ongoing process. It can take time to see large improvements in the school environment, culture, or student attitudes and behaviours. Recognizing small steps in the right direction as well as larger accomplishments can

• keep stakeholders on track and motivated to achieve the end goals

• encourage new staff or stakeholders to get involved with school health initiatives

• act as a springboard toward new achievements

• help others understand the value and impact of school health initiatives

What should we celebrate?There are no rules about what or how you should celebrate. Success can take many forms, including

• improving student participation rates

• teachers acting as role models

• increasing the availability of healthy food choices

Recognize and celebrate contributions from volunteers as well as anyone else who has been involved in both behind-the-scenes work (e.g., planning and organizing) and those who are more visibly involved. When determining what to celebrate, look back at your evaluation results — what were your major achievements this year? Big or small, these are some types of results you can celebrate.

Who should be involved in the celebration?You may choose to celebrate some of your successes only within your school health team, while others you may want to share with the whole school community (e.g., students, parents, teachers, school administrators, community members). Who you involve will depend on what you are celebrating.

REFLECTEVALUATE AND

CELEBRATE PREPARE

CREATE A SHARED VISION

IMPLEMENTAND MONITOR

DETERMINE THE PRIORITY ISSUES

DEVELOP AN ACTION PLAN

Social and Physical Environments

Partnerships and Services

Teaching and Learning

Policy

Process for Building Healthy School Communities using the Components of Comprehensive School Health

(Adapted from the Alberta Healthy School Community Wellness Fund)

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1 For more information on developing a school health action plan, visit http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/7123.asp.

How Can We Celebrate and Share Successes?

Within your school health action plan1, identify how you will celebrate and share your successes. The following table provides some examples.

Talk about it! Write about it! Show it!

School announcements Newsletters Videos

Assemblies School/district websites Signage or banners

Presentations at conferences Staff notices Photo stories

Parent-teacher nights Local newspaper Bulletin board displays

Discussions at staff meetings, Administration meetings

Award nominations Photo displays

Parent council meetings Promising Practices databaseCertificates and recognition awards

• What did you set out to do (briefly describe your initiative)?

• How did you do it?

• Who was involved?

• What were the results?

• Did you run into any challenges?

• Were you able to overcome these challenges? If so, how?

• What were the keys to your success?

• How did you evaluate the initiative’s success?

• What do you plan to do next?

What type of information should we share?When preparing any type of communication activity where you would like to share your successes, ask yourself:

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One Alberta school created a “wall of fame” in their gym. Pictures of students being active were posted on the wall with the goal of increasing activity levels among students.

Each year, one Alberta school jurisdiction compiles pictures from all of their schools that have worked to improve wellness during the year. The pictures are then transformed into a PowerPoint presentation, with music, and a copy is provided to each participating school. These videos have also been showcased at health champion meetings.

An Alberta elementary school invited families to take part in events such as Family Fitness and Rollerblading Nights. During these events, students got to teach their families about what they are learning in physical education class and to celebrate these accomplishments together.

Examples of Celebrating and Sharing Successes

To recognize and honour the contributions of school staff at a K–12 school, positive and encouraging comments from students were inserted into advent calendars. Each staff member received their own personalized calendar with 24 uplifting messages.

One Alberta school hosts an annual dance-a-thon that serves as both an active fundraiser and an opportunity for the school community to come together in celebration. Numerous challenges and activities take place between staff members and students leading up to this event and during the event itself. These related activities promote positive relationships among all members of the school community and increase school connectedness. Local businesses and organizations that contribute to this event are recognized through certificates displayed in the school.

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This resource was adapted from the Healthy Students Learn Better Health Champion Tool Binder, Alberta Health Services, Central Zone Comprehensive School Health Program, 2009. 535A • 2017

Supportive Resources

Alberta Healthy School Community Wellness Fund success story videos: http://wellnessfund.ualberta.ca/Videos.aspx

Awards

Friends of Education Award: http://www.asba.ab.ca/services/awards.asp

PHE Canada Awards: http://www.phecanada.ca/awards