Coordinated School Health
Coordinated school health is the buzz these days. As public health professionals we know both the immediate and life-long benefits of
quality health and fitness programming in schools. The fact is most of our schools have limited resources and staff devoted to health and fitness. The additional pressure of meeting academic standards means health and fitness often gets short changed. A coordinated school health program includes:
- Physical education
- Health education
- School health services
- Food services
- Counseling services
- Health promotion for staff
- Healthy school environment
- Parent and community involvement
- District health coordinator
To help schools develop the support and leadership skills needed to implement coordinated school health programs, the American Cancer Society and Comprehensive Health Education Foundation are sponsoring Leadership Institutes. The first one begins in
April 2001. The goal is to have coordinated school health programs across the state with community-wide support for school health education. For more information contact Ruth Abad, ruth.abad@doh.wa.gov.
Teach a Feature
This section of the H.E.R.E. web site lists over
150 links to aid you in your health education planning and research. Bookmark this page for easy reference. We are constantly adding to this list as we become aware of sites recommended by colleagues or that we find useful. If you use a health promotion or education web site and we don't have it on our list please let us know by emailing us at here@doh.wa.gov.Would it be nice to go to a web site that has been viewed and recommended by your peers? Our recent focus groups told us they feel flooded with information on the Internet and don't have enough time to review it. Based on these responses we are considering a new section listing
web sites rated by you. The details for this are still being worked out, so we'd appreciate your feedback now. How would you like to see this organized? Do you have ideas regarding criteria for the rating system?
Ruth Francis Williams is the CHILD Profile Health Education Coordinator at DOH. She earned a BS in Health Sciences from Columbia Union College in Maryland and an MPH in Health Promotion and Education from Loma Linda University in California.
Ruth's career began with a community-based program as a Perinatal Health Educator developing programs and classes for women whose children were born addicted to substances. Orange County in California brought her on board as a health educator to provide tobacco education trainings in the public health clinics and county jail facilities. Then for three years she was with the March of Dimes in Seattle as the Education Program Manager. She's been with the Department of Health for the past five years, three years with the Office of Health Promotion and two years with CHILD Profile.
Preventive Health is a strong passion of Ruth's. "To put a program in place that can help a person avoid health problems or injuries is an incredible feeling," she says. "Then to see it really work is the true reward." She feels the best part about health education is that it can be applied to all aspects of a person's life. Ruth's advice to new health educators is to "remember you can't do everything but you sure can try." Ruth sees finding a niche in the preventive health field as a future challenge for health educators. "It seems as though you need to be more and more diverse." She has seen it go in waves from specialists to generalists. She advises to get as much experience in as many areas as you can. Supervisory experience is very helpful in moving up. She says, "It is easy to settle into a routine and not expand ourselves; none of us wants to become the 'old health educator'. So keep up-to-date, informed and trained."
Ruth shared with us some of her outside interests and hobbies like reading, hiking, and camping (as long as a motel is near!). When she gets a chance she enjoys taking in the sites and sounds of the ocean. Most of all she loves learning to live life though the eyes of her three-year-old daughter. She’d be happy to share her experiences, in maternal and child health, materials development, and social marketing. Ruth can be contacted by phone (360) 236-3549.
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