What is a health-promoting school and why do we need more of them?
Schools play an increasingly important role in shaping children and youth's academic, physical, mental, and social development, with lasting impacts across their life course.
Investments in state-of-the-art health-promoting school approaches are a key entry point to cultivating healthier educational and social environments. The WHO defines a health promoting school as one which “is constantly strengthening its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working”. Such approaches not only enable students to develop good habits around nutrition, physical activity, and mental health, but are also part of the solution to interrelated societal challenges such as social inequity and climate change.
This is the ethos of the Schools4Health project (2023-2025), led by EuroHealthNet and funded under the EU4Health programme. Against this background, and organised under the auspices of the Belgian presidency, the video was launched at the Schools4Health seminar in Brussels on 31 January 2024, which explored how different stakeholders in policy and practice can work better together to optimise the contribution that schools towards the better health and wellbeing of the wider school community.
Discover more about health-promoting schools and why we need more of them at https://schools4health.eu/
ISCA is the lead communications partner in the Schools4Health project. This animation video was made by Crunchy Oyster studios in collaboration with ISCA and EuroHealthNet.