Health Promoting Schools

The Health Promoting Schools Approach (HPS – also called comprehensive school health and coordinated school health) strives to provide a way to link health and education outcomes by including the instruction, supports and environment of the school setting as part of a foundation that allows for interaction and cohesion between home, school and community.

A health promoting school approach “includes a broad spectrum of activities and services which take place in schools and their surrounding communities in order to enable children and youth to enhance their health, to develop to their fullest potential and to establish productive and satisfying relationships in their present and future lives” (CASH, 2009)

In other words, Comprehensive School Health is bigger than the school itself – therefore we refer to a healthy school community to encompass the school environment and the many support services in the school and community that affect the health and wellness in the community.

Based on this holistic approach, a framework for Health Promoting Schools was developed by Ever Active Schools (Alberta) and adopted by PHE Canada that focuses on four main elements, the 4 E’s:

Education: Supporting a culture of learning for all school community members including wellness-related programs for students and health promotion learning opportunities for teachers, staff and parents.                                   

Everyone: Collaborating in a meaningful way with the people involved in the everyday life of the school and equal and inclusive opportunities for everyone to make healthy choices

Environment: Fostering safe social and physical environments in the school, home and community, implementing policies that enable healthy active lifestyles and cultivating a place where everyone knows they belong.

Evidence: Collaboratively identifying goals, planning for action and gathering information to indicate the effectiveness of actions to support healthy active lifestyles throughout the school community.

Don't forget to check out our Promising Practices Database!