School plays a vital role in the overall development of a child into a competent adult who contributes usefully to society. Schools have profound influence on thinking patterns and behaviors of children, their families and the community in general.
‘Workshop on health promotion in school setting was organized by PGIMER, Department of Paediatrics in collaboration with School health Department of Chandigarh Administration on Saturday, 14th May 2011.With an one year of successful intervention programmes being organized by health promotion team under ICMR Project titled ‘‘Development of Health promotion model for the prevention of non- communicable diseases in school setting’’ in selected schools of Chandigarh. This workshop was organized to discuss about the future of Health promoting schools in Chandigarh.
Dr. Bhavneet Bharti focused on the importance of initiating this project on larger scale and targeting to enroll more schools in Chandigarh to be the future Health Promoting schools in collaboration with UT Health Department. Dr Paramjyoti Medical Officer , School Health informed about the various initiatives undertaken under the school health programme in Chandigarh.
Dr JS Thakur elaborated in detail about the WHO’s concept of Health Promoting schools and the need for accreditation process in Chandigarh which has been planned along with Quality Council of India. He cited the example of Thailand where the school are rated under four categories as per their performance- Platinum, Gold , Silver and Bronze . He talked about replicating the same model in Chandigarh.
As an outcome of this exercise a school manual will be brought out for the reference of all the schools This manual will be a guide to schools on various issues such as school environment , policy for transportation, policy on substance abuse, school bag policy etc.
Dr. Puneet Bains, Medical Officer shared the experiences of the selected schools in Chandigarh and hardships faced by the school authorities, project staff to complete this pilot project successfully. School based lifestyle intervention programmes across the globe were also discussed. Furthermore, schools act as a model for the community and the school based programmes can provide a foundation for lifelong healthy behaviors and thereby significantly reduce the burden of preventable chronic diseases for both individual and society were discussed.
Keeping in mind the above scenario, PGIMER-ICMR is working for developing a health promotion model. The workshop aims at developing sustainable model needed to initiate health promotion model for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCD) in school setting with limited resources.
The workshop brought all the stakeholders on one platform to discuss key issues, operational problems, challenges faced by school authorities on the initial pilot basis of the participating schools.
Dr Bhavneet Bharti, Associate Professor, Department of Advanced Peadiatrics, Chandigarh