Originally published as Health Education Volume 107 Issue 6
ISBN: 978-1-84663-660-8
Guest Edited by:
Professor Don Stewart and Dr Jenny McWhirter
This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Noreen Whetton. The papers in this issue discuss the resilient school approach, and the child focused approach of Noreen Whetton in her work in health education on understanding children and young people. Resilience is a life event phenomenon that buffers against circumstances that normally overwhelm a person's coping capacity. It is linked with "coherence", or the ability to handle stress-related problems, "connectedness" and the ecological model encompassing a lifespan approach, within key settings that influence the individual's psychosocial development. Preventative population health practices that address the strengthening of human, social and organisational capital may well promise greater success in fostering population health, and particularly resilience, than traditional psycho-educational strategies. These become increasingly effective as the whole school approach is implemented as young people engage and participate fully in research and decision-making - key principles of Noreen Whetton's approach to health promotion.
Special Health Education bundle offer
Buy this title plus two other special issues of Health Education for only $90 (individual price per issue is $45)
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Other titles within this bundle include:
Volume 108, issue 3 - Post-Millennium Trends in Substance Use by Young People
Volume 108, issue 1 - Sex and Relationship Education: Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice
Contents:
Guest Editorial
Thinking Positive: The Importance of Resilience and Listening to Children and Young People
This Editorial introduces the papers in the special issue and outlines the essential features of the resilient school approach and the child-focused approach of Noreen Whetton in her work in health education on understanding children and young people.
Health-promoting School Indicators: Schematic Models from Students
This paper outlines a three-stage process for engaging with students to develop school level indicators of health; in sequential class groups students first generated, then categorised indicators and finally developed schematic representations of their analyses. There is a political and practical need to develop appropriate indicators for health-promoting schools. As key stakeholders in education, students have the right to be fully engaged in this process.
Childrens’, parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of child wellbeing
An exploration of parents', teachers' and childrens' perspectives on children's understanding of wellbeing is presented in this article with the aim of illuminating and comparing the conceptualisation of wellbeing from these three perspectives.
Promoting School Connectedness through Whole School Approaches
The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to demonstrate the contribution of whole school approaches embodied by the health-promoting school approach, to the promotion of school connectedness, defined as the cohesiveness between diverse groups in the school community, including students, families, school staff and the wider community.
A Resilience Framework: Perspectives for Educators
This position paper has three fundamental perspectives. First, it outlines the rationale for resilience education in the school curriculum. Second, it presents an original three-dimensional framework for resilience: as a state, a condition and as a practice. Third, it explores some current Australian programs designed to enhance resilience for children and young people. The three-dimensional framework for resilience offers a framework for action. The focus of both this framework and this paper are on being proactive. It is about “what can be done” rather than just “what is needed”.
How Effective is the Health-Promoting School Approach in Building Social Capital in Primary Schools?
The purpose of this paper is to describe a study which investigated the relationship between the “health-promoting school” (HPS) approach and social capital and tested the proposition that the implementation of an HPS intervention leads to a significant improvement in HPS features and social capital.
Development of Population-Based Resilience Measures in the Primary School Setting
The purpose of the population-based study in the paper is to report on progress in formulating instruments to measure children's resilience and associated protective factors in family, primary school and community contexts. This paper provides health educators and researchers with reliable and valid resilience measures, which can be used as guidelines in implementing evaluation programmes for the health-promoting school project and the prevention of mental health problems in children.
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Health Education is a leading edge journal which reflects the best of modern thinking about health education, offers stimulating and incisive coverage of current debates, concerns, interventions and initiatives, and provides a wealth of evidence, research, information and ideas to inform and inspire those in both the theory and practice of health education.
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