Healthy Schools

Healthy Schools is a 50/50 partnership between Deschutes County and Bend-La Pine Schools – each paying 50% of the costs to place Public Health Specialists in high schools as part of school staff. The Public Health Specialist serves as a school health coordinator for their high school and the middle school/s that feed into their high school. By the school year 2023-24, each major high school will host a Public Health Specialist on their campus. Healthy Schools will focus on topics such as adolescent suicide, vaping, bullying, social media, tobacco and alcohol use, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections as well as other emerging risks and infectious diseases that may keep students away or disconnected with school, which increases the likelihood of negative consequences in adulthood.

The Mission of Healthy Schools is to provide public health services directly within schools and school communities using collaborative, systemic, and integrative approaches so that students, families, and school staff in Deschutes County have access to high quality health promoting programs.

Healthy Schools Goals:

Increase social, mental, emotional, and physical health supports in schools
Increase students reaching Positive Youth Development benchmark
Reduce unmet physical and mental/emotional health needs among students
Reduce disparities by race/ethnicity, gender/sexual orientation, and income levels
Increase on-time graduation rates

Why do we need Healthy Schools programming?

As parents and community members, we have a stake in the health and productivity of our youth. However, there are many challenges and obstacles that stand in the way such as drug and alcohol use, suicidal ideation, pregnancy, to name a few. These issues negatively affect young people’s school performance, future job prospects, and physical and mental health with lasting damage into adulthood. This has individual as well as societal costs that can and should be avoided.

Schools are a logical and efficient setting for public health interventions for youth, with the potential for high impact. Schools are settings where learning is expected and new behaviors are learned and practiced daily. Children and adolescents spend nearly half of their waking hours at school for 13 years of their critical developmental life (National Association of Chronic Disease Directors [NACDD], 2013). More than 95% of youth ages 5-17 can be reached through schools (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2019).

Program Plan, Metrics, Framework and Evaluation Plan

Every GREAT program needs a plan, a roadmap if you will that shows why the program is needed, how the program operates and how we will know the program is working. Review our plans and reports here.

Program and Evaluation Plan

Logic Model

2022-23 Annual Report

2022-23 Annual Report Addendum: Student Health Indicators

2022-23 Results One Pager

2021-2022 Annual Report

Accomplishments and Success Stories

Success Stories to share: Click here to read them.

Our Fan Club quotes: Read the quotes here.

Acknowledgments

Healthy Schools was made possible through funding provided by Bend-La Pine Schools and Deschutes County. The commitment to joint funding and ownership of this program allows resources to be directed in a manner that addresses our local community's needs and priorities. This partnership is an innovative approach to supporting our communities kids, families and schools.

Special thanks to our colleagues in the following organizations for the extensive time and effort they have contributed to the development of Healthy Schools: