FAQs

Background

  • The National Healthy Schools Collaborative (NHSC) is a collective impact group of well-established, nationally recognized organizations working in health and education brought together by the Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools. The NHSC believes that health is an essential precondition for teaching and learning.

  • The American Academy of Pediatrics, Action for Healthy Kids, The National Association of School Nurses, School Superintendents Association, The National Education Association, Child Trends, Playworks, Alliance for a Healthier Generation, School Based Health Alliance, Shape America, National Association of State Boards of Education, Healthy Schools Campaign, Kaiser Permanente, Attendance Works and Opportunity Labs.

  • The National Healthy Schools Collaborative is supported entirely by philanthropy led by Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools Initiative.

How the Roadmap was Created 

  • To identify bold, ambitious, action-oriented opportunities that have the potential to dramatically increase the number of healthy schools over the next decade.

  • To coordinate and accelerate multi-sector collaboration needed to empower every school to succeed, every educator to excel, and every child to thrive.

  • The NHSC decided the Healthy Schools Ten Year Roadmap must:

    • Emphasize wellness, equity, access, and comprehensive support for all adults and students within schools.

    • Be informed by stakeholder voices including students, families, educators of all types, unions and their representatives, and members of the health ecosystem.

    • Be grounded in evidence.

    • Acknowledge that educators need the training, tools, resources, and support to prioritize their health and the health of all in the school community, especially students.

    • Encourage flexibility, adaptation, and innovation of health and wellness practices, programs, and policies.

    • Inform the way stakeholders think and speak about healthy schools. Developing the whole child is the best way to create strong academic outcomes.

  • To advance the multi-sector collaboration needed to empower every school to succeed, every educator to excel, and every child to thrive, the leaders of Kaiser Permanente Thriving Schools brought together a group of well-established, nationally recognized organizations working in health and education to identify the most promising opportunities to dramatically increase alignment across health and education. Throughout this process, collaborative decisions were made by consensus, though not necessarily endorsed unanimously, unless specifically indicated. The views and opinions published by the National Healthy Schools Collaborative do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Kaiser Permanente or any specific member of the collaborative.

  • The roadmap offers ten comprehensive and complementary priorities to dramatically increase the number of healthy schools over the next ten years. Each priority includes recommended actions focused on funding, policy, and practice across the federal, state, and local levels.

  • No - they needed to agree with the mission, vision, guiding principles, and priority areas. Organizations differed with regard to recommended actions in the roadmap or have stressed specific matters of primary focus. All have contributed with the greatest sense of shared purpose at this time of national need.

Take Action

  • To coordinate and accelerate equitable funding, policy, and practices to advance the interconnectedness of health and learning so that every school succeeds, every educator excels, and every child thrives.

  • The Roadmap is for all stakeholders working in, or benefiting from, education and health, including policymakers, health and education administrators, educators, health practitioners, unions, students, and families.

  • Read all ten priorities, or depending on your interest, explore a single priority or set of recommended actions. The Roadmap is not one size fits all. It is a framework to consider what it will take to create healthy schools in your community.

  • Systems change takes time, which is why this roadmap is intended to play out over the next decade. With the need so tangible and a once-in-a-generation influx of federal funding available, there is a clear opportunity to reimagine public school systems that provide students, families, and educators (educators means ALL school staff) with equitable access to healthy, holistic, supportive, integrated, and high-quality learning and working environments.

  • • If you’re a family member: advocate for healthy schools in your community.

    • If you work in a school or district: take the Thriving Schools Integrated Assessment (free to use and aligned to the Healthy Schools Ten Year Roadmap)

    • If you’re a health system leader: endorse the roadmap and support local implementation efforts by contacting the Thriving Schools team.

    • If you work for the state government: encourage your leadership to apply to be part of the Healthy Schools Fund’s inaugural cohort.