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Coordinated School Health Program
  1. Overview — The Coordinated School Health Program is a system to effectively connect children’s health with their education. Children cannot achieve their full potential when they are ill, hungry, fearful, discouraged, and/or abusing alcohol or other drugs. With a myriad of effective programs to improve health and education, much can be accomplished. Healthy schools create an atmosphere for learning. Addressing the physical, social, and emotional needs of young people increases the opportunity for them to reach their true potential as learners.
  2. Vision — Maine’s Coordinated School Health Program is the best in the nation in nurturing our young people to grow into aspiring and healthy adults.
  3. Mission — Agencies of State Government will join together with families, schools, and community members to build a coordinated school health program, which profits and improves the health and education of all young people.
  4. Goal — To create, advance, and sustain a coordinated school health program, across all State agencies, that guides and supports communities in improving their capacity to serve and promote the health and learning of all young people.
  5. Eight Components of a Maine Coordinated School Health Program: 1] Comprehensive School Health education; 2] Physical Education & physical activity; 3] School counseling, physical & behavioral health services; 4] Nutrition Services; 5] School Climate; 6] Physical Environment; 7] Health Promotion & Wellness; and 8] Youth, Parent, Family, and Community Involvement.
  6. Benefits & Achievements of the Coordinated School Health Program:
    1. Provides a coordinated policy and administrative structure to coordinate school health programs;
    2. Helps to break through and link the traditional categorical funding streams for school health programs;
    3. Places prevention and early intervention as a primary strategy to significantly improve the health and education of Maine children and youth;
    4. Reduces absenteeism and classroom behavior problems;
    5. Improves classroom performance;
    6. Better prepares students to be productive members of their communities.
  7. Continuing Challenges
    1. The percentage of youth engaging in risk behaviors that lead to chronic disease is worse than the national average for: youth smoking; lack of participation in vigorous physical activity; sexual behaviors; and suicide attempts.
    2. Substantiated child abuse & neglect rate is 19.45 per 1,000 children, birth through age 17;
    3. Nearly 16% of Maine’s children live below the Federal poverty level;
    4. Only 60.7% of high school graduates in 1996-97 planned to attend post-secondary school;
    5. 23% of Maine high school students surveyed are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.
  8. Collaborators: Departments of Education, Human Services, Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, Corrections, Public Safety, Labor, and Agriculture, Food & Rural Resources. A 38 member "Key Stakeholder Advisory Group" with representatives from health agencies, educational agencies, children’s non-profit agencies; mental health agencies; and the faith community
  9. Funding for this initiative is provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  10. Key Staff and Further Information: