(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Happiness is a publicly stated and authorized goal as well as a cultural tenet in Thailand, so it is not surprising that the model of school health promotion is built around happiness as the central organizing principle. An article in Volume #186, 2015 of Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, reporting on the proceedings of 5th World Conference on Learning, Teaching and Educational Leadership, describes how this Thai model for school health promotion can be developed from several national comprehensive and issue-specific projects. "The first group are system-based projects that aim to help the school management and healthy learning management systems, such as the Healthy Schools Network (HSN), Healthy Literacy for Children, Youths, and Family Educational Network (HL). The second group are issues-based projects for students both in the classroom and outside the classroom, such as
the Development of Integrated Learning Systems: Life Skills and Sex Education (LS), Health Promotion for Thairath Wittaya School (HPT), Non-smoking Schools Network (NSN), Youth Justice (YJ), and Empowering Children and Community (ECC). The project defined the Components and common characteristics of a Healthy School as follows: There are 5 components of a Healthy School including 1) happy students, 2) happy organization, 3) happy environment, 4) happy family and 5) happy community. All five components are related and affecting each other as a Healthy School aims to achieve “happy students” through adjustment, risk factors reduction, structure and system management for the school, environment, family, and community as a safe place and promotion of student health and well-being in both social and physical, mental, intellectual fields. And there are 30 common characteristics in these five components. The authors conclude that: "The target of healthy development in school context shows a substantial part of the definition of “health” that the
Thai Health Promotion Foundation has tried to explain: that it must have a broader meaning that bypasses the traditional definition of health being “diseases-free” and diseases are “germs" that can be eliminated with vaccines and drugs only”. It supports a new definition of health as being “a comprehensive and integrated health and social dimensions of body, mind and soul into a lifestyle linked and interrelated to the human relationship with the physical and social environment”. In these days where many health ministries and even WHO are retreating from a health promotion (health asa resource for living" to a prevention only approach (absence of diseases), this newly developed Thai model is to be welcomed. It portrayal of the school as part of the community and linked to the family also is a strong reminder for us all. Read more>>
the Development of Integrated Learning Systems: Life Skills and Sex Education (LS), Health Promotion for Thairath Wittaya School (HPT), Non-smoking Schools Network (NSN), Youth Justice (YJ), and Empowering Children and Community (ECC). The project defined the Components and common characteristics of a Healthy School as follows: There are 5 components of a Healthy School including 1) happy students, 2) happy organization, 3) happy environment, 4) happy family and 5) happy community. All five components are related and affecting each other as a Healthy School aims to achieve “happy students” through adjustment, risk factors reduction, structure and system management for the school, environment, family, and community as a safe place and promotion of student health and well-being in both social and physical, mental, intellectual fields. And there are 30 common characteristics in these five components. The authors conclude that: "The target of healthy development in school context shows a substantial part of the definition of “health” that the
Thai Health Promotion Foundation has tried to explain: that it must have a broader meaning that bypasses the traditional definition of health being “diseases-free” and diseases are “germs" that can be eliminated with vaccines and drugs only”. It supports a new definition of health as being “a comprehensive and integrated health and social dimensions of body, mind and soul into a lifestyle linked and interrelated to the human relationship with the physical and social environment”. In these days where many health ministries and even WHO are retreating from a health promotion (health asa resource for living" to a prevention only approach (absence of diseases), this newly developed Thai model is to be welcomed. It portrayal of the school as part of the community and linked to the family also is a strong reminder for us all. Read more>>
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