Promoting the health, safety and wellbeing of children in schools is an important part of whole child education. For success, health, safety and wellbeing promotion should be integrated into the school system. Successful integration, requires important conditions that encourage commitment, consistency, sustainability and accountability of programs. These conditions are discussed below:
Condition One:
School head must take up the role of an active, engaged and supportive leader of the integration process.
The school head’s role is critical for the successful integration of health, safety and wellbeing in the school. Integration is more likely to be successful if the head is actively involved in the process. This is because she or he sets…show more content… It also states how and when these changes will be made, monitored and evaluated for impact.
Maintaining and promoting health and safety in schools enhances the wellbeing of children and this improves their motivation and ability to learn. While many schools implement some health and safety activities with the aim of maintaining safety in the environment, preventing infections and meeting health and safety regulations, only a few implement it as a strategy for enhancing learning and academic achievement. Hence, it is not included in the school improvement plan. As a result, efforts that keep the school healthy and safe for effective learning are inconsistent and unsustained. A clear example can be drawn from what happened during the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Every school ensured that children, staff and visitors maintained good hand hygiene to prevent transmission of infection while the outbreak lasted. Immediately after Nigeria was declared free of the Ebola Virus, the practice of regular handwashing in schools declined drastically. This occurred despite the fact that regular handwashing is necessary for preventing other infections (such as respiratory and diarrheal diseases) which are commonly spread in the school…show more content… Safety on the other hand is defined in the Business Dictionary as the “relative freedom from danger, risk, or threat of harm, injury, loss to personnel and/or property, whether caused deliberately or by accident”. Wellbeing is a positive state of affairs in one’s life and environment and depends on a number of factors including health and safety. These are interrelated and dynamic states that must be constantly maintained and improved to achieve optimal functioning in individuals and the environment. Therefore, it will be difficult to successfully integrate them into a school without a culture of continuous