Type 2
Issue No. 19
Fall 2005

Meeting the Challenge

Using Family and Community Partnerships to Improve Student Health and Safety

Many children of the 21st century must contend with health issues such as childhood obesity and increasing violence in their neighborhoods. Changes in lifestyles and society's civility require new solutions to help children become healthy and productive adults. Schools represent a major source of initiatives that focus on the well-being of the whole child. NNPS schools are finding ways to involve families and communities to improve their students' health and safety.

Encouraging a Healthy Lifestyle

At the Dr. Lydia T. Wright School of Excellence in Buffalo, NY, the school collaborated with the National Football League's Buffalo Bills and several health organizations to cap off a year-long healthy living initiative. The school hosted a Family Sports Night where students and their families participated in football and other fitness activities, ate healthy snacks, and had blood pressure and body mass index measured. The event allowed family members to learn the importance of exercising and nutritious eating while having fun with school staff and sports heroes.

Bennett Park Montessori Center, also in Buffalo, hosted a day-long event for students and their families to promote the resources of community members and organizations connected to health-related fields. The Health and Wellness Fair welcomed about 75 professionals from health-related agencies, community organizations, nutrition-based groups, and other holistic and medical fields. The organizations created hands-on, interactive displays, making learning fun for students and their families. All participants snacked on nutritious foods and beverages donated to the fair.

Helping to Ensure Student Safety

In addition to addressing students' health, schools are also teaming up with family and community partners to provide children a safe means to return home from school. At Lincoln Elementary School in Wausau, WI, the Action Team for Partnerships (ATP) developed the Walking School Bus for students who attend after-school programs. Students meet at the front office "bus stop" before walking home with two adults, one at the front of the "bus" and one at the back, along a predetermined route. The adults carry a backpack of emergency supplies such as flashlights, emergency phone numbers, and during the winter months, hats and gloves, as they walk students to their homes. The police are notified of the "bus routes" to help ensure the safety of the children and adult "drivers."

In Cleveland, at Robert Fulton Elementary School, the ATP worked with the community to set up "safe haven points." Located in community churches and businesses, the safe havens agreed to serve as a place where students could go if they felt threatened or unsafe on their way to or from school. ATP members created maps identifying the community partners and hosted an event for students and their families to visit the safe havens and meet the community partners. At this event, police fingerprinted and photographed students for emergency identification purposes.

Planning for Student Well-Being

Many NNPS members set student health and safety as a non-academic partnership goal in their One-Year Action Plan for Partnerships. The activities shared in this column represent a few of the ways schools work to reach this goal. If your school or district is interested in learning more about these or other health and safety partnership practices, visit www.partnershipschools.org, click on "In the Spotlight," and choose the 2005 and 2004 collections of Promising Partnership Practices.

Health and Wellness with the Buffalo Bills from Promising Partnership Practices 2005 (.pdf)

Intergenerational Drumming and Dancing from Promising Partnership Practices 2005 (.pdf)

Walking School Bus from Promising Partnership Practices 2005 (.pdf)

Safety Walk from Promising Partnership Practices 2005 (.pdf)

Type 2Issue No. 19 Fall 2005