Comprehensive school health requires the involvement of the whole school, parents and the community… identifying priorities and addressing these in partnership with Southern Health-Santé Sud.
We agree with you that our children deserve the best health and learning outcomes and we are proud to partner with you to help teach students about what keeps us healthy, good health behaviours, and to make changes in their surroundings to encourage positive health outcomes including: healthy food choices, promoting physical activity, encouraging positive relationships with teachers and their peers as well as school policies that support good health.
Working with Schools
Health promotion staff known as healthy living facilitators work with schools and school divisions to support healthy school communities. Facilitators work on primary prevention initiatives including analysis of issues and using evidence-informed approaches in health promotion. Work can include organizational development, community development, strategy development, personal development, partnership development, health information and project support. Often, healthy living facilitators will link schools with other community resources to support work happening in a school or division.
Public health nurses also provide support to schools by connecting you to other Southern Health-Santé Sud community resources. Schools are invited to connect with a public health nurse for current information on a variety of health-related topics such as substance use, healthy relationships, positive well-being, reproductive health, communicable disease and sexually transmitted infections. Dependent on the needs identified by the school community, the public health nurse may spend time at the school on a regular basis to enhance access to health information and services to the students. Public health nurses also provide the provincial immunization school-based program in schools.
Supporting Students
One-on-one health counseling is also available for students through a self-referral, referral from a school guidance counsellor or teacher. If you are a student, you are welcome to contact a public health nurse directly to arrange a confidential discussion in which case parental permission or consent is not required. If applicable, the public health nurse may refer you to another health care provider such as Mental Health and Addictions, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba or other. We are here to support you.
