Safe and Healthy Schools
Safe and Healthy Schools Professional Learning Opportunities
Project Get Fit
Project SWITCH
Schools play a critical role in promoting the health of young people and helping them establish lifelong healthy behaviors. Research shows that healthy schools can help improve students' academic performance and overall health. Our goal is to serve the whole child, including strategies and resources for all students to be safe, healthy, challenged, engaged, and supported.
The Center for Disease Prevention's (CDC) model for integrating health-promoting practices in school settings is called the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model. The model can be used by schools and community partners to improve population health and academic achievement outcomes through a collaborative approach with schools, communities, children, and families. The OSDE encourages schools and school districts across the state to implement the ten components of this model (see below).
The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model
How does the WSCC model help to improve learning and health?
The WSCC model meets the need for greater emphasis on both the psychosocial and physical environment as well as the increasing roles that community agencies and families play in improving childhood health behaviors and development. The WSCC model also addresses the need to engage students as active participants in their learning and health. The purpose of the WSCC model is to strengthen a unified and collaborative approach designed to improve learning and health in our nation’s schools.
How can schools use the WSCC model?
Establishing healthy behaviors during childhood is easier and more effective than trying to change unhealthy behaviors during adulthood. Schools play a critical role in promoting the health and safety of young people and helping them establish lifelong healthy behaviors. Every school has a unique set of needs. To better serve their students, school leaders and staff can incorporate the WSCC model components as they see fit.
What role do families and community agencies play in the WSCC approach?
Family and community involvement in schools is important to the learning, development and health of students. When schools engage families in meaningful ways to improve student health and learning, families can support and reinforce healthy behaviors in multiple settings—at home, in school, in out-of-school programs, and in the community. With help from school leaders, community agencies and groups can collaborate with schools to provide valuable resources for student health and learning. In turn, schools, students, and their families can contribute to the community through service-learning opportunities and by sharing school facilities with community members (e.g., school-based community health centers and fitness facilities).
WSCC Resources
- Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Overview
- Journal of School Health–Special Supplement on Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child, November 2015
- National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model: A Guide to Implementation
- National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) Video Series: How School Districts Are Using the WSCC Model
Oklahoma Champions of Excellence Program
