HEALTH PROMOTING SCHOOLS NATIONAL CONFERENCE 14-16 SEPTEMBER 2006

1. Potchefstroom Campus HEALTH PROMOTING SCHOOLS NATIONAL CONFERENCE 14-16 SEPTEMBER 2006 University of the Western Cape Cape Town

2. Health Promoting Schools • Acknowledgements • The many students, teachers, principals, parents, community leaders, people from the private sector and departments of education • Dr. Tiaan Kirsten – Faculty of Education Sciences North West University • Prof. Bo JA Haglund and his team – Karolinska Institute Stockholm Potchefstroom Campus

3. Health Promoting Schools • South Africa: a few snapshots • SA faces many challenges of development • Reconstructing education to a system that brings equity to the education of all children is one of the most urgent • The children are the future, and must be prepared to meet the demands of that future. The challenge cannot wait: it must be faced now. • The main problems in SAfrica's education system related to the troubled past, and in particularly to the policy of Apartheid and its consequences Potchefstroom Campus

4. Health Promoting Schools • What is needed to be understood is the nature of the educational challenges which face South Africa now, at this juncture in its history. • Years of oppressive rule under the Apartheid system were laid to rest in 1994 when the nation elected its first multi-racial and democratic government. • From holistic-societal point of view recent indicators give an insight into the challenges to be grappled with in education in South Africa. • Crime, violence, and a variety of psychosocial problems continue to grow as the promise of a new life for many is too slowly to be realised. Potchefstroom Campus

5. Health Promoting Schools • Unemployment and low incomes are the after-effects of years of anti-apartheid international sanctions. And conflicts abound as both blacks and whites attempt to redefine their roles in the new society. • Currently, more than half of South Africa's population is under the age of 20. • Various problems continue to frustrate the effective delivery of education. Education is being characterised as: inefficient, costly, unequal, and poor in quality; the training of teachers is inadequate Potchefstroom Campus

6. Health Promoting Schools • there is a lack of basic materials; • communication between departmental officials and teachers is poor to non-existent; • rationalisation and redeployment of teachers is causing uncertainty and lack of motivation; • drop-outs and repetition of grades and subjects is more the rule than the exception; • misappropriation of funds is widespread; • chronic absenteeism of teachers and pupils as well as drunkenness while on duty cast a further dark cloud over the education sphere; Potchefstroom Campus

7. Health Promoting Schools Health and nutrition: the National Food Consumption Survey (2000) survey eating patterns South African children between the ages of one and nine years old. One out of two children has an intake of less than half the recommended level of a number of important nutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamins A and C. These deficiencies cause: undernourished children to suffer from apathy, short attention span drop in learning ability due to iron deficiency; poor weight gain and growth retardation; poor cell functioning and structure due to zinc deficiency, poor growth, poor digestion, low mental alertness and poor resistance to infection because of a lack in vitamins. Potchefstroom Campus

8. Health Promoting Schools • Research amongst role players suggests various issues: • Education Department • Dysfunctional schools • Absenteeism of educators • Mismanagement • Lack of ethics • Schools and teachers • Demands from education department • OBE • School organisation • Multicultural environments Potchefstroom Campus

9. Health Promoting Schools • Schools and teachers • Parents/families • Attitudes of learners • Discipline • Societal/community demands • Physical ailments in educators and learners • Learners • Lack of learner support • Disregard for human dignity • Lack career orientation & life orientation • Observe stress in teachers • Teaching & learning not realised optimally Potchefstroom Campus

10. Health Promoting Schools • Parents • Dysfunctional teaching • Abuse of learners • Perceive school as primary educator • Schools should be safe – routes to schools • Social ills – violence, drug abuse, etc. • Inefficient parenting roles/skills • Absent parents Potchefstroom Campus

11. Health Promoting Schools ORIGIN OF TOXIC CULTURE/SCHOOLS Negative views of their work, their abilities, their students No leadership to help staff to overcome adversity, avoid negative rationalizations, no closure to conflict Drift towards negativity slow, gradual, new shared viewing of the school counterproductive Pockets of negativity influence whole school Keepers of negativity and cynicism (rumourmongers, hostile storytellers, antiheroines and antiheroes, harmful exemplars) Use complaints to gain power and attention Potchefstroom Campus

12. Health Promoting Schools • CHANGING A TOXIC CULTURE • Schools with a negative, or toxic, culture • lack a clear sense of purpose • have norms that reinforce inertia • blame students for lack of progress • discourage collaboration • often have actively hostile relations among staff • In fighting such a negative culture, the staff must assess the underlying norms and values of the culture and then as a group activity, work to change them to have a more positive, supportive culture. Potchefstroom Campus

13. Health Promoting Schools TOXIC SCHOOLS HEALTHY SCHOOLS Lack shared purpose shared purpose Aggression in workplace commitment team spirit Unhealthy healthy Bullying care for each other Unproductive productive Degenerative growth Fragmented cohesion Not serving needs of all all stakeholders important Negative values collegiality, performance Disgruntled staff professional community Potchefstroom Campus

14. Health Promoting Schools Hopelessness shared sense responsibility Attacking new ideas network positive communication Always criticizing rituals/ceremonies that reinforce core values School is battleground/war interpersonal connection Oppositional groups shared sense respect and care Spreading frustration for everyone Negative conversations stories that celebrate Stories of failure told successes Animosity against principal professional relationship Potchefstroom Campus

15. Health Promoting Schools Poverty A combination of a lack of human assets (health, skills, education, knowledge, etc.) and physical assets (housing, land, food, water, etc.) and presence of other aspects (risk, vulnerability, insecurity, social exclusion, loss of dignity, deprivation, lack of choice, powerlessness). Potchefstroom Campus

16. Health Promoting Schools Health Health is not about the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals, families, communities and societies maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. the sense that life is comprehensible, manageable and meaningful) and the ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and in their relationships with their environment. Potchefstroom Campus

17. Health Promoting Schools Innovation in the school Key questions to be answered … Doing something I/we know about more often? Doing something I/we know about better? Doing something somewhat different? Doing something altogether different? Potchefstroom Campus

18. Health Promoting Schools • Innovation in the school • Conceptualisation and definition • The ability to deliver new value to the customer (a new way of doing things or a new way to create customer satisfaction) • Innovation utilises creative acts that must result in quantifiable gain • Extending the utilisation of a product or process • Any idea, practice, or material artifact perceived to be new by the relevant unit of adoption • No innovation as long as the present course of action is considered to be satisfactory. Discrepancy between satisfactory and actual performance urges the need for alternatives Potchefstroom Campus

19. Health Promoting Schools or … Innovation is process, involving multiple activities, performed by multiple actors from one or several organisations, during which new combinations of means and/or ends, which are new for a creating and/or adopting unit, are developed and/or produced and/or implemented and/or transferred to old/or new partners (adapted from Gemuenden, 2004) Potchefstroom Campus

20. Health Promoting Schools • Innovation in the school • The more open and willing an organisation is to accept and even seek out new ideas from its external environment, the more innovative it is (Zaltman & Wallendoff, 1979). • The tendency for large organisations to adopt more innovations has been attributed to critical mass (eg. the number of people convinced about the innovation; number of people engaged in the innovation; the amount of positive energy generated at the point of entry of the innovation; the amount of success generated after the point of entry of the innovation (success stories) Potchefstroom Campus

21. Health Promoting Schools • Critical success factors of innovation • Team/individual discensus • Conflict properly managed is a positive force in innovative thinking • Team/individual creativity • Generation of ideas and new improved ways of doing things • Team/individual commitment • Willingness to transform intellectual in-puts into out-puts. It is about doing new things Potchefstroom Campus

22. Health Promoting Schools What is meant by health? Popular and general meaning of health New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998: 864): “…the state of being free from illness or injury…” A person being “restored” to health would then mean a person whom was ill or who had an injury, but is now free from such problems. This general meaning of health as a concept is loaded with the connotations and denotations of health as only being about the physical body, curative and very medicalised – in fact a very bio-medical approach Potchefstroom Campus

23. Health Promoting Schools World Health Organisation Definition The World Health Organisation (WHO, 1948, 1999) defines health as: “A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Probably the most often cited definition of health Definition recognizes social wellbeing and therefore the links between individuals and their social world. Important for the role it has played in highlighting that health is much more than the absence of disease, and that it is much more than a physical state (Wass, 2000: 47) Potchefstroom Campus

24. Health Promoting Schools • Ryff & Singer’s (1998:1) conclusion • It also seems that in traditional everyday use, and because of the longstanding emphasis in human health on illness, and • also because science has until now relegated health to the biological sciences, • the state of the art conceptualization of health is that it is primarily concerned with the body. Potchefstroom Campus

25. Health Promoting Schools Wellness informed holistic definition of health (Kirsten & Viljoen, 2004) Optimal states of the domains of well-being in which an individual as a biopsychospiritual being, is physically, psychologically and spiritually integrated, interrelated and in harmony with the total living, non-living and symbolic environment, conducive to living a life of quality and actualising his/her potential in all the contexts of human existence, based on sustainability and for the common good. Potchefstroom Campus

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36. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • Indicators of the HPS • The health promoting school – a choice to be made • Policies and practice • Formal curriculum • Environment • Social environment • School, home, community links – partnerships • Community and health agencies Potchefstroom Campus

37. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • The health promoting school – a choice to be made • Evidence • Staff members aware of HPS concept • HPS framework is used in school • HPS promoted in school community • HPS supported by school policies • HPS concept supported by school leadership Potchefstroom Campus

38. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 2. Policies and practice • Evidence • HPS plan/framework agreed upon for all to see • Promotion discussion school policies • Clear policies and procedures – needs students (mental, health, welfare, safety, risk management local issues, environmental sustainable) • Teachers informed trained to meet responsibilities – needs learners • Teachers encouraged to promote sense of community well-being Potchefstroom Campus

39. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 2. Policies and practice (cont.) • Evidence • School undertake health promoting activities • Trained and active health worker – nurse, occupational therapist, etc. Potchefstroom Campus

40. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 3. Formal curriculum • Evidence • Curriculum based on holistic model of health • Teachers convinced the content/delivery support school’s health and well-being • Staff have access to professional development for curriculum development • Teachers seek student input and feedback in relation to teaching, assessment and content • Teachers encouraged and supported to design effective learning experiences for all students Potchefstroom Campus

41. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 3. Formal curriculum (cont.) • Evidence • Teachers want student participation in learning and use methodologies that consider student needs and learning styles • Processes in place that students do not slip through • Teachers have high achievable expectations of learners • Learners have meaningful opportunities to participate and contribute Potchefstroom Campus

42. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 3. Formal curriculum (cont.) • Evidence • Curriculum informed by current health issues of learners in community • School informed by parents, learners and teachers in terms of health issues Potchefstroom Campus

43. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • School environment • Evidence • Welcoming safe for learners, staff, all visitors • Protection from rain, sun, etc. • Classrooms ventilated and well-lit • Safe and adequate play areas • Hygienic & adequate toilet facilities, soap, hand-drying facilities, ample sanitary disposal Potchefstroom Campus

44. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 4. School environment (cont.) • Evidence • Access to hygienic water • Appropriate and secure places to store belongings • Appropriate areas for sick learners • Regular safety audits of grounds, classrooms, with parent, learner and staff representatives Potchefstroom Campus

45. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 5. Social environment/ethos • Evidence • School and community share values • Ownership and pride promoted amongst learners and staff • Community experience school as welcoming place • School/classroom atmosphere warm, open and mutual respect • Learners/staff feel comfortable and safe • Staff members model caring relations • Variety of structured student forums where issues can be raised Potchefstroom Campus

46. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 5. Social environment • Evidence • Variety of structured staff forums where issues can be raised • Encourage, value and recognise achievement by learners and staff • Teachers aware of roles as “significant people” that learners can approach for help and guidance Potchefstroom Campus

47. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 6. School, home, community links – partnerships • Evidence • Established varied communication strategies with parents/caregivers in regard to policies and practice • Clear communication to parents/caregivers on the ways they can support learner’s school-based learning • Sharing of physical resources with community Potchefstroom Campus

48. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • 6. School, home, community links – partnerships (cont.) • Evidence • Use local media to communicate school activities and events to wider community • Use the expertise of community agencies, groups and individuals in complementing the curriculum Potchefstroom Campus

49. Indicators for Health Promoting Schools • Community and health agencies • Evidence • Linking with local health and other local community agencies • Teacher/counselor have latest information on health and related services (type provided, referral procedures, waiting lists, charges, etc.) • Training opportunities for staff on health-related issues available by local health and community agencies • Local health and community agencies help and support curriculum delivery (sex education, STD’S, HIV Aids, etc.) Potchefstroom Campus

50. Health Promoting Schools Thank you for your attention! Potchefstroom Campus