FRESH Webinars & Web Meetings

FRESH Partners often organize webinars and open web meetings as part of our activities. This page consolidates the web events into a convenient schedule and archive but they are also noted on our different activity pages.

Come back to this page often to find the latest recordings and updated schedule. Be sure to click on the "Participants Link" noted for each session as the URL may vary depending on the organizer/host for that session.

Upcoming Webinars/Web Meetings
Date/Time
Topic/Session Description
Recordings/Readings/Resources
Tuesday 07 September 2021
(09:00 am Washington DC/ 14:00 London, UK)
Monitoring, Reporting, Evaluating and Improving Part Two: Helping Countries to Improve Programs Using Data, Reports and Other Tools
  • Doug McCall, International School Health Network on MREI Systems: Introduction, Overview & Draft List of topics
  • ​Mohini Venkatesh, Save the Children Lead  on the Waliku programme Introductory remarks on using data and technology to improve school attendance, absenteeism and student health and well-being.  
  • Pierre Chapelet, UNESCO Project Officer -on the use of administrative data systems and open source technology like OPEN EMIS to identify needs & focus programs 
  • Parviz Abduvahobov, Programme Specialist UNESCO - Comments to begin the open discussion on MREI topics and building country capacity in MREI systems
This session will continue discussions from our  previous webinar on 01 June which presented several examples of better practices. The goal of this session is to explore how countries can be supported as they move beyond simply monitoring & reporting on programs towards evaluation/analysis and, more importantly, using the information to improve practices, programs and policies. The session will conclude with a discussion of how country capacity in MREI can be strengthened.     
To access this webinar, just click on this Participants Link a few minutes before the start of the session. This is a Zoom meeting:
Meeting ID: 836 6528 2006
Passcode: 745888

Recommended Reading & Resources
  • MREI Systems- An Introduction
    (See the draft list of better practices at the bottom of this page.
  • MREI Systems- An Overview 
    (Click on the "Encyclopedia Entry" tab within this web page for examples)
  • MREI - Data Driven Decision-Making
    (This summary on how countries can encourage the the use of data at all levels in their ministries and agencies is in development. Contributions and edits to the draft are welcome.)
  • MREI - Administrative Data Systems & Sources
    (This summary on how countries can make effective uses of general administrative data sources like EMIS to identify needs and focus programs is in development. Contributions and edits to the draft are welcome.)     ​
Tuesday 05 October 2021
(09:00 am Washington DC/ 14:00 London, UK) 
Preventing Non-Communicable Diseases in Low Resource Countries (TBC)

Details will be posted here soon.
To access this webinar, just click on this Participants Link a few minutes before the start of the session. This is a Zoom meeting:
Meeting ID: 836 6528 2006
Passcode: 745888
Previous Webinars/Web Meetings & Recordings

06 July 2021


FRESH Partners
Renewal & Realities: A Review of Recent Efforts to Renew and Report on School Health & Development Leading into a Fact-Finding Survey and Policy/Curriculum Analysis

The recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic is overlapping with several major renewal initiatives and reports on school-based and school-linked inclusion, equity, health, safety, personal and social development. The next open web meeting of the FRESH Partners will examine many of these recent initiatives and reports which may or may not indicate a turning point in over three decades of work by many different organizations in different ways in different contexts. This is your opportunity to catch up on the many recent global developments. This examination will lead into an informal launch of a global fact-finding survey and policy/curriculum analysis project being led by some FRESH Partners and others.

Here are some of the initiatives which, once again, are aspirational in nature, bringing hope for sustainable pathways forward, while, once again, lacking many details or substantive new investments and truly inter-sectoral, whole child and systems-based ways working within education systems:
The 2021 Fact-Finding Survey and Extensive Policy/Curriculum Document Analysis

The 2019 decision by the Technical Cooperation Group to exclude health & life skills education from its monitoring activity prompted some FRESH Partners to conduct the survey and document analysis. The goal is to produce a factual report, not only of the status of various approaches and programs promoting inclusion and a whole child approach, but also on current national and state/provincial practices related to contextualizing, implementing, scaling up, integrating within education systems, building capacity and working towards the much-needed systems-focused change strategies. This webinar will briefly introduce the latest version of the fact-finding survey, the search strategy for collecting policy, guidance and curriculum documents, and a sample prototype profile/list of documents that will be collected from each jurisdiction, many of which will be posted in the UNESCO Health Education Resource Centre. Brief reference will be made to the dissemination and knowledge exchange strategy planned by UNICEF and ISHN as well as a reiterated call for organizations and individual researchers to join the project as correspondents and analysts.
Click here to access the webinar recording and slide presentation

Recommended Reading & Resources
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01 June, 2021
Monitoring, Reporting, Evaluating & Improving (MREI) School Health & Development Programs: Examples, Better Practices & Building Country Capacity

Discussion Leaders: This open web meeting of the FRESH Partnership will discuss several methods and tools to monitor, report and evaluate school health & development programs. The focus will be on how these initiatives can lead to improving the policies, programs and capacities of countries and states. Several recent UN agency and landmark MREI initiatives have been described and linked on pages of the www.schools-for-all.org web site, which will form a backdrop to the web meeting discussions. The purpose of the discussion is to identify better practices which move us beyond data collection for accountability towards systemic improvements and increased country capacity.
Click here to access the webinar recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Reading & Resources
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11 May, 2021
MHH and Gender: Collective Advocacy for Investment in Menstrual Health and Hygiene for a Gender Equal Future

Featured Speakers:
  • Thérèse Mahon, Regional Progamme Manager South Asia, WaterAid
  • Ina Jurga, International Coordinator of Menstrual Hygiene Day, WASH United
This session will discuss a recently published report on the importance of menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) investment and provides a concise, comprehensive, and compelling case for the why and how to invest in it for the improvement of women’s and girls’ health and well-being.  A new recently published definition of menstrual health that aims to encourage cross-sectoral integration of MHH will also be shared. Ms. Mahon and Ms. Jurga will present the report and definition and provide an update on the plans for Menstrual Hygiene Day 2021.
  • How can we make the case for investment in MHH across sectors to address the breadth of menstrual experiences and related needs? 
  • What advocacy opportunities exist in the education sector to scale up MHH as a key component to achieve the SDGs? 
Click here to access the webinar recording and presentation slides.

Recommended Reading & Resources
06 April 2021
The UNESCO Commission on the Futures of Education
  • Noah Webster Sobe, Future of Learning & Innovation, UNESCO
  • Karen Mundy, FOE Commissioner, Ontario Institute for the Study of Education, Canada
  • Martin Henry, Research Coordinator, Education International
  • Dan Laitsch, Centre for Educational Leadership & Policy, Simon Fraser University
In 2019, UNESCO convened an international commission to consider the potential futures of education (FOE). The FOE report (scheduled for November 2021) will build on the humanistic approach to education laid out in previous UNESCO reports such as the 1996 Delors Report and Rethinking Education in 2015. The social, economic and environmental context leading into 2050 includes persistent inequalities, social fragmentation, political extremism amidst the climate crisis. Children, parents, educators and schools are recovering from the huge disruptions of the Covid 19 pandemic which has exposed many of the fault-lines in education systems. These converging forces offer an opportunity to re-balance the purposes of schooling and to reposition health and development within their strengthened social and custodial functions.

This Open Web Meeting of the FRESH Partners will focus on the recovery & renewal of education and the repositioning of school health & development  within that global re-imagining and reform discussion. The session will introduce the FOE Commission and engage FRESH Partners and others in a discussion leading to a submission to the Commission in April.  A draft brief being prepared by the education sector members of FRESH will be available at the session. 

Click here to access the webinar recording and presentation slides.

Recommended Readings & Resources
01 March 2021

Education Commission
Learning Teams: Global Evidence & Impact
  • Carole Basile, Dean, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers Colleg, Arizona State University
  • Lucy Lake, CEO,Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED)
  • Liesbet Steer, Director, Education Commission
Learning teams are groups of professionals led by teachers that collaborate at all levels of an education system. They can include qualified teachers, education support personnel, leadership and management, and health and welfare specialists. Learning teams also engage the community to draw on local knowledge and support, especially from parents.
The Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) of the global Education Commission proposed the concept of learning teams in its 2019 Transforming the Education Workforce report. FRESH Partners, led by the Global Network of Deans of Education, have supported the concept, especially the inclusion and training of health, social and develoopment workers as part of these teams. GNDE is forming a Consortium of Education and Other Faculties to promote an inter-professional workforce development strategy for the initial education and development of teachers, educators and professionals from other sectors in health, personal and social development.
For more background on Learning Teams, read this EWI brief. 
Join us to find out more about how learning teams can contribute to improved learning outcomes, inclusion, and resilient education systems.
Click on the web link to access the webinar recording.

Recommended Readings & Resources
02 February 2021
Health & Life Skills Education: Ignored & Poorly Understood by Policy-Makers, Researchers and Donors

The Covid 19 pandemic has exposed three essential risks among people in most countries. The lack of skill in hand-washing and other hygiene behaviours, the low literacy levels about vaccines causes hesitancy and refusing masks because we don’t realize that our own health is intertwined with the health of others has multiplied the damages and death caused by this pandemic. A mandatory health & life skills education curriculum can fix this problem among children in time for the next pandemic as well as reduce the impact of several other diseases.

UN agencies are monitoring student learning for the 2030 Goals in almost every core subject except health and life skills (H&LS) which they have deliberately excluded from the list under Target 4.7. Researchers study education about many specific topics but rarely about the curricula that delivers that instruction. Donors fund projects on bits and pieces but few seek to build capacities such as instructional time, training primary and secondary HLS specialists or efficient curriculum design for H&LS or personal-social & health (PSH) education. Almost no country or global organization reports on the status and reach of H&LS/PSH curricula

This open meeting of the FRESH Partners review a detailed memo on the UN agency decisions to exclude H&LS/PSH curricula from the monitoring of the UN 2030 goals. A petition/letter campaign will be discussed. We will also review questions from a Fact-Finding Survey & Policy/Curriculum Analysis of all countries and states being undertaken by several FRESH Partners to fill the gap left by the UN Technical Cooperation Group. Research questions to be investigated by a research network of the World Education Research Association as recommended  by the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion will be introduced.
Click on the web links to access the webinar recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Reading & Resources
01 December 2020
Comprehensive School-based & School-Linked Bullying Prevention:
An Evidence-Based Action Framework 
  • Chrstophe Cornu, Yongfeng Liu, Health & Education, UNESCO
  • James O'Higgins Norman, Co-Chair Scientific Committee, Dublin City University, UNESCO Chair on Bullying in Schools & Cyberspace
  • Christian Berger, Member Scientific Committee, Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile
Following the commitments of the G7 education ministers meeting of July 2019, the International Conference on School Bullying and the International Day Against School Violence & Bullying in November 2020, this webinar will delve into a report of the Scientific Committee that underpinned these two important events. This report reflects new approaches which recognize that bullying occurs within structures and relationships within and outside of the school. The researchers propose a "whole education approach" or framework comprised of nine components:
  • political leadership, laws and policy
  • curriculum, learning and teaching to prmote a caring school climate
  • reporting, referral and support services
  • student empowerment & particpation
  • monitoring and program evaluation
  • training and support for teachers
  • safe social and physical environments in schools and classrooms
  • involvement of parents and stakeholders
  • inter-sectoral cooperation among government and other partners
This framework can guide and coordinate legislation, policy and programs on bullying, cyber-bullying and other forms of violence as well as online safety, digital citizenship and technology use.
Click on the web links to access the webinar recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
5 November 2020

Organized by UNESCO and the French Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports
International conference on school bullying
  • Here is the detailed program of speakers
UNESCO and the French Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports are holding an international conference on school bullying on November 5, 2020. The online conference aims to build global momentum to end bullying in schools by raising awareness of the issue, sharing what works to address it, and mobilizing governments, experts and the educational community. It builds on the commitments made at the meeting of G7 Ministers of Education under the French Presidency in July 2019, and will contribute to the new International day against violence and bullying at school, including cyberbullying, on 5 November 2020.

Bullying in schools deprives millions of children and young people of the fundamental right to education. A recent UNESCO report reveals that more than 30% of the world's students have been victims of bullying, with devastating consequences on academic achievement, school drop out, and physical and mental health. The confinement imposed as part of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in an unprecedented increase in screen time by children and adolescents, and likely exacerbated the issue.
Watch the conference recording.

Recommended Readings & Resources
29 September, 2020
The 2020 GEM Report on Inclusion: Findings, Principles and Potential Next Steps
  • Anna D'Addio, Lead Author, Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO
  • David Osher, Vice-President, Institute Fellow, American Institutes for Research, Evaluator UNICEF Child Friendly Schools
  • Stuart Cameron, Lead for Equity & Inclusion, Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
  • Connie Laurin-Bowie, Executive Director, Inclusion International
  • Tim Lewis, Professor, University of Missouri, Co-Director, OSEP Center,  School Wide Positive Behavior Interventions & Support 
  • Kate Lapham, Deputy Director, Education Support Program, Open Society Foundations (Soros)
This session will provide an overview of the findings, principles and policies discussed in the 2020 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report. The report has successfully identified the elements that can unify the many sectors and systems to strengthen and maintain inclusive education. Promoting inclusive schools is not a new goal, as policymakers, practitioners and researchers have sought to include students with learning disabilities and to help others overcome the barriers of hunger, poverty, infectious diseases and discrimination. However, the GEM report has underlined the inequalities laid bare by Covid 19 crisis and collated the responses of countries in a new country policy database. 
This open web meeting of the FRESH Partners will learn more about the report and discuss different perspectives and potential next steps for global organizations and countries. Equity and inclusion have long been the goal of several organizations and experts who have been asked to comment on the report, its implications and their planned or current activities. The session will include links to key reference documents, including those from the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion, which is finalizing an extensive report on inclusion funded by Public Safety Canada and a concept note on relevant multi-intervention program frameworks such as Child Friendly Schools and Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports.
Click on the web links to access the webinar recording and the slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources:
15 July 2020
The Secret's Out: Tobacco Company Tactics to Target Young People: The Responses from Schools
  • Kerstin Schotte, Medical Officer, Tobacco Contro, WHO
  • Pamela Ling, Center for Tobacco Controol & Research, University of California San Francisco
  • Enrico Aditjondro, Associate Director Southeast Asia, Vital Strategies
This session will discuss how schools can protect young people from manipulation by the tobacco industry and prevent youth initiation of nicotine and tobacco products.  Dr Schotte will open the session with a brief overview of the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2020 campaign, which focused on exposing the marketing tactics used by the tobacco industry to attract young people, and present classroom activities that can be implemented in schools. Dr. Ling will then present research documenting tobacco company tactics and how to counteract them, and highlight digital cessation interventions available to young people. Mr. Aditjondro will provide insights into how mass media and digital media are being used in Southeast Asia to raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco and protect young people. 
  • What strategies do tobacco companies use to target young people? 
  • What can schools do to protect students from tobacco use?
  • How can media and digital media help protect young people?
Click on the web links to access the webinar recording and presentation slides.

Recommended Readings & Resources:
30 June 2020
Life Skills, Social & Emotional Learning and 21st Century Skills: We Know the Why, the What is clearer, the How needs some work Life skills (LS), social & emotional learning (SEL) and 21st century (21CS) skills have been described, promoted and defined in several ways over several years in several sectors. The rationale for their use in guiding education, health and social programs is well-accepted. These over-lapping learning/ behaviour models are now driving educational change and are being considered as an element for achieving Goal 4 (education) and Target 4.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They are now appearing in many national and international statements on critical student learning outcomes. 

Many groups are converging at the global level to share knowledge. Many organizations are sorting out the implications for their sectors or their work. Many are developing ways to measure, monitor and improve programs across curricula, in specific subjects and in extra-curricular, co-curricular, school routines and other extended education activities in the community and on-line. This open meeting of the FRESH Partners will learn about initiatives being undertaken by FRESH Partners and others who are getting closer to offering more specific advice, assessment tools and other resources to policymakers and practitioners.
Click on these web links to access the webinar recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Reading & Resources:
26 May 2020
Re-Opening Schools During the Covid 19 Pandemic: Principles & Practical Advice
  • Antonia Wulff, Education International
  • Deepika Sharma, UNICEF
  • Christophe Cornu, UNESCO
  • Bella Monse, GIZ (German Development Agency)
  • Mohini Venkatesh, Save the Children
  • Mervat Nessium, WHO
  • TBC, GAVI The Vaccine Alliance
This open web meeting of the FRESH Partners will discuss several key resources and initiatives being undertaken by UN agencies and other FRESH Partners. These include important principles developed by Education International representing the world's teachers, a framework for country level decisions published by several UN agencies  and updates from other organizations.
Click on these web links to access the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
15 May 2020
New directions for assessing Menstrual Health and Hygiene in Schools: Menstruation-related Engagement, Self-Efficacy and Stress (MENSES) Assessment and Monitoring tools
  • Jacquelyn Haver, Senior Specialist, Save the Children
  • Jeanne Long, Director, Save the Children
Join us to discuss the MENSES Assessment. They will present on the four phases of the development of the Menstrual-related Engagement, Self-Efficacy and Stress (MENSES) Assessment and evidence from the Philippines and Mexico on whether data from this instrument could be interpreted and providing consistent and meaningful information about school participation, stress, and self-efficacy—outcomes that have been qualitatively linked to girls’ experiences managing menstruation in school.  This session commemorates Menstrual Hygiene Day (May 28th).
  • Why is absenteeism not an easy outcome to measure with menstrual health and hygiene programs?
  • What evidence exists regarding the effects of poor menstrual hygiene and girls’ education?
  • How is Save the Children monitoring MHH programs?
Click on these web links to access the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
30 April 2020
Big Thinking, Small Steps: Systems Change in School Health & Development as Reflected in the FRESH Cross-Cutting Themes
  • Lauren Herlitz, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
  • Scott Rosas. Director of Research & Evaluation, Concept Systems Inc.
  • Doug McCall, Executive Director, International School Health Network
In 2014, the FRESH Partners, a coalition of over 40 UN agencies, donors and NGO’s, identified the core components or pillars (FRESH Framework that are common to the different approaches used when working with schools. FRESH Partners also published a set of Thematic Indicators on 13 different issues or topics. In 2020, the FRESH Coalition is developing a set of Cross-cutting Themes that cover issues such as contextualization, implementation quality, scaling up and sustaining programs, capacity, integrating/ mainstreaming within schools and systems change. The cross-cutting themes will identify simple, powerful criteria that are already in use by several UN agencies and that can be applied to monitor and improve school programs and approaches.

This webinar will begin by reviewing some of the latest research on sustainability and systems thnking in school health promotion and social development. Then participants will learn how this research is being transformed into practical advice, better practice criteria and even standardized tools and methods within the new FRESH Cross Cutting themes.
 
The FRESH cross-cutting themes reflect a trend that started about 2005 and increasingly thereafter, in which researchers began to catch up with practitioners in understanding that school systems are open, adaptive, multi-level, bureaucratic and complex ecological systems that cannot be engaged in multiple, competing projects and programs without changing paradigms as suggested by this draft statement on A New Paradigm for School Health Promotion in the 21st Century.  

This webinar is part of a series in highlighting the work of FRESH Partners in promoting educational success, health and development. These sessions are part of a FRESH virtual panel presentation at the Comparative Education conference (CIES 2020) in Miami 2020 which was converted to a vitual event because of the Covid 19 pandemic
Click on these web links to access the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
29 April 2020
School Health & Development in Low Resource Countries: The Ongoing FRESH Partners Dialogue and Summaries
  • Seung Lee, Senior Director, School Health & Nutrition, Save the Children, with Presenters from several FRESH Webinars, Co-Authors of LRC papers
Context matters. The resources, cultures, systems and capacities within countries and regions will determine the nature, priorities and, ultimately, the sustainability of school-based and school-linked programs to promote education, health and development. Understanding these factors and developing programs, policies and multi-component approaches within contexts such as low resource countries (LRC) has become an important matter, even a starting point, for many UN agencies, donor organizations, researchers and global organizations.

This session organized by members of the FRESH Partnership will discuss a consensus statement and discussion paper on the needs and effective programs that are most relevant to low resource countries (LRC). The FRESH partners have gathered the research and practice-based knowledge about LRC through an ongoing series of FRESH webinars and papers.The issues most relevant to the LRC context have been identified and resources should be focused on these issues. As well, several guiding principles have been identified:
  • Country ownership and leadership
  • Broad-based national and international coordination and collaboration
  • Empowerment of people and communities
  • Evidence-based and experience-tested approaches, programs
  • Incremental, implementation, scale up and sustainability planning
  • Equity and gender-based interventions
This webinar will highlight how these LRC-focused issues, programs  and principles have been discussed in over 25 webinars led by Save the Children over the past few years and in several summaires supported by the Young Health Program of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca. As well, open meetings organized by the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion have developed concepts that need to be applied to LRC's. Participants will be asked to comment on the draft documents  as well as join or lead future LRC webinars.
This webinar is part of a series in early March 2020 highlighting the work of FRESH Partners in promoting educational success, health and development. These sessions will be part of a FRESH panel presentation at the Comparative Education conference (CIES 2020) in Miami March 20-26, 2020
Click on these web links to access the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
23 April 2020
Equity, Education, Health & Social Development: Part of the Bridge to a Sustainable Future
  • Martin Henry, Education International and Esther Care, Brookings Institution
  • Dan Laitsch, Faculty of Education, SFU, Chair, International Research Network (World Education Research Association
  • Seung Lee, Director, School Health & Nutrition , Save the Children
  • Deepika Sharma, Nutrition Specialist-Lead on School-Age Children & Adolescents, UNICEF
  • Douglas McCall, International School Health Network
School-based and school-linked promotion of equity, educational success, health and social development has re-emerged as an urgent concern for policymakers as schools are once again recognized as the hub and host of multiple programs and the backbone to achieving many of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The FRESH Partners, a coalition of UN agencies, donors and global organizations, invites researchers, practitioners, officials and others to reflect on progress towards these goals as we reach the one-third mark in the fifteen years towards the 2015-2030 objectives. The FRESH Partners invite discussions and presentations on some of the themes that we have been working on together as well as others; including:
  • strengthened consensus on a whole child approach by documenting the need for a wide breadth of learning opportunities in a report and tools for countries to use in broadening their choices and pathways for students.
  • ensuring that the support for health & life skills stated in the 2015 Incheon Declaration is reflected in the monitoring of Goal #4, Target 4.7 (learning objectives) of the SDG's by reporting on the work of the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion and the parallel WERA International Research Network on HPSD and GNDE Consortium of Education & Other Faculties.
  • improved equity and relevance by focusing on the policies and educational programs that are of more concern to low resource countries (LRC). The FRESH partners have been working gather the research and practice-based knowledge about LRC through an ongoing series of FRESH webinars and papers now summarized in a consensus statement and discussion paper.
  • reporting on the initial results and implications of a global fact-finding investigation into the core components, programs,  capacities, implementation and systems in school health promotion and development This fact-finding survey and policy/curriculum analysis will hopefully lead to ongoing and more substantive reporting in the future.
  • more focus on systems and incremental change to ensure sustainable programs and practices at all levels across multiple sectors by reviewing the newly published FRESH cross-cutting themes/indicators on topics such as situation assessments, organizational capacities and implementation/scale-up strategies Lead Presenters include Doug McCall (ISHN) and others who are  focused on systems change strategies
This webinar is part of the program of CIES 2020 the world conference of the Comparative & International Education Society. The session was intended to be a panel presentation at the conference in Miamia. FRESH PArtners are pleased to organize this virtual session as part of that event and to highlight the work of FRESH Partners.
Click on these web links to access the recording and slide presentations.Please note the additional recording and slides from Dan Laitsch, who was not able to join the group session on April 23rd.

Recommended Readings & Resources
22 April 2020
Global School Health & Development: Starting with the Facts:
  • Deepika Mehrish Sharma, Nutrition Specialist-Lead on School-Age Children & Adolescents, UNICEF
  • Dan Laitsch, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
  • Emilie Sidaner, Coordinator, UNESCO Initiaitve on School Health & Nutrition
A long history that is somewhat short on basic facts. This could be one description of school-based and school-linked promotion of educational success, health and development at the global level. Despite decades of work and research we find ourselves, at the start of the UN Sustainable Development Goals process, without many facts on the status of the core policies, education, services and social/physical conditions in schools. This session will present the framework and key questions being prepared in a fact-finding survey and collection/analysis  of policy/curriculum documents that will help to fill the gap in our knowledge. Participants will be invited to comment on both draft instruments and to become involved in an International Research Network that will encourage research and further analysis from the survey/document analysis.
The concept of a multi-component approach (MCA) to promoting educational success, health and development through schools emerged in the late 1980’s and diffrent versions were published by UN agencies in the 1990’s on overlapping aspects such as health, inclusion, safety and others. In 2000, several UN agencies came together and published the FRESH Framework as a tool to align their efforts around some common, core components as they pursued their respective approaches such as health promoting schools, child-friendly schools, safe schools, community schools and others. 
A 1997 WHO report noted that the concept of Health Promoting Schools was subject of confusion as to purposes, outcomes, and essential elements.There is a common belief how policy, education, service and changes in the physical and social environment of the school should be coordinated. But we use these four or five “pillars” or components differently for different purposes. Some models see these elements as critical infrastructure. Other models as “domains” or spaces into which single or multiple interventions can be delivered, with or without coordination. Another blind spot in our thinking has been the unit of action and analysis. Most models advocate for a “whole school” approach, where the work and change occurs at the school level, primarily by teachers and other educators. Much less attention has been paid to the practices of local health, social and other agencies, local school districts and the various other ministries that share the responsibility for delivering and maintaining school programs.More confusion continues today, especially as we struggle to use new knowledge about ecological approaches and systems thinking.
This session will seek to clarify and dispel some of this confusion by focusing on a set of facts to be gleaned from a global fact-finding survey and a collection of policy/curriculum documents being undertaken by several FRESH Partners. The fact-finding exercise will describe the status of the core FRESH components related to educational access, health, equity. These include over-arching policy, education, health & other services, a safe, healthy physical environment and social environment.
The survey will include food and nutrition as an example of how the FRESH Framework can be applied to a broad health/social issue.Other questions will be asked about national/state strategies related to adaptation to different contexts, system/organizational capacities, implementation quality and planning for scale-up/sustainability, integration within the core mandates and concerns of education systems and the use of systems science/ organizational development concepts and tools.
FRESH Partners are pleased to note that a new UN Inter-Agency Initiative on School Health & Nutrition is being established to better coordinate efforts at the global and country level. One of the activities of this initiative will be a substantive report on school health & nutrition.
This webinar is part of a series highlighting the work of FRESH Partners in promoting educational success, health and development. These sessions are part of a FRESH panel presentation at the Comparative Education conference (CIES 2020) in Miami in March 2020 which was converted into a vitual event
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation

Recommended Readings & Resources
14 April 2020
Inter-Agency Responses and Guidance on COVID-19 for Schools
  • Lisa Bender, Education in Emergencies Lead, UNICEF
  • Emily Richardson, Education in Emergencies Director, Save the Children 
  • Julia Finder, Education Advisor, Save the Children
Join us to discuss Save the Children's and UNICEF's responses to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. We will present technical guidance and tools to support schools in addressing the competing priorities associated with a pandemic response to ensure the well-being and safety of their population.  We will also commemorate World Health Day (April 7), whose theme this year is Support Nurses and Midwives. Questions to be addressed include:
  • What health actions should be prioritized by schools during the prevention, response, and recovery stages of this pandemic?
  • How can different bodies work together to maximize resources?
  • How to adapt school health work in a socially distant environment?
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentations by Emily Richardson and Lisa Bender.

Recommended Readings & Resources
02 April 2020
Using evidence to leave no child behind: What next for the Out-of-School Children Initiative?  

MODERATOR: Stuart Cameron, Equity and Inclusion Thematic Lead, GPE Secretariat 
PRESENTERS:
  • Mark Waltham, Chief of Education, UNICEF Nepal Country Office
  • Wongani Grace Taulo, Senior Education Advisor, Gender Equity and Inclusion (GIE) UNICEF
  • Sheena Bell, PhD Student, Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Toronto Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) (formerly UIS, UNICEF)
  • Bilal Barakat, Senior Policy Analyst, Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR), UNESCO
Many children and adolescents remain out-of-school in GPE partner countries, mostly from the marginalized groups. Understanding who these children are and why they are out-of-school is a vital step in policy and planning. The Out-of-School Children Initiative (OOSCI) is a partnership between UNICEF, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) which was developed and launched in 2010. It aims to support governments to create and execute innovative approaches to better estimate the number of children that are not included in educational opportunities, identify who these children are, and to create solutions to bring these children back to school. This session will reflect on the lessons from OOSCI since 2010, examine some key methodological issues around counting out-of-school children, and consider how evidence can be used in future to improve policy and planning, and remove barriers to educational opportunity.
Organized by the Global Partnership for Education
Here are the web links to the recording and slides
24 March 2020
Life Skills: A Basis for Health, Development & Inclusion
  • Clare Hanbury, CEO & Founder, Children for Health
  • TBD, Experts & Practitioners in Life Skills Education
Children should not be seen as passive receivers of services or education but active citizens in their own right. Children are social actors with skills and capacities to bring about constructive solutions for their own well-being and that of their family and community. Unfortunately, many health and social programs are based on behaviourist models that "prescribe" health promoting or risk-reducing behaviours for individuals. In order to be effective in managing their own health & safety as well as influencing the conditions affecting their lives, young people will need to develop generic and applied life skills. 

Life skills have been defined as the “abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life”. They represent the psycho-social skills that determine valued behaviour and include reflective skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking, to personal skills such as self-awareness, and to interpersonal skills. Practicing life skills leads to qualities such as self-esteem, sociability and tolerance, to action competencies to take action and generate change, and to capabilities to have the freedom to decide what to do and who to be. Similar terms used in the education sector include "social & emotional learning" and "promoting student agency".
Life skills are different than topic-specific skills such as preparing healthy meals, refusing to use drugs, responding to bullying, planning personal finances and negotiating sexual relationships. LIfe skills offer the generic abilities within individuals to respond to such health and social issues. Life skills can be learned in the classroom as well as in a wide variety of community-based, co-curricular, online and extra-curricular extended educational activities.
This open web meeting will begin a discussion about life skills by learning about the Children’s Participation, Learning and Action for Nutrition (PCAAN) programme in Tete Province of Mozambique.The purpose of this programme was to involve children in effective learning and action in nutrition education activities at school, in the family and in the community. The Life skills approach is central to the program success with students.
The program benefited from three opportunities that integrate classroom and extended educational learning. This illustrates another aspect, integrated learning across the school day and into homes and the community, that the FRESH Working Group is promoting:
  • all primary schools in Mozambique must schedule 20% of the curriculum on local Issues. This ‘local curriculum’ aims to bring the community to the school and the school to the community.
  • ‘School Council’ in Mozambique are community-based, governing body linking schools and the community.
  • At the time, school based ‘Interest Circles’(school clubs) were being revitalized where (at the primary level) children in grades 5-7 were able to improve their life skills through extra curricula activities. The Interest Circles recruited groups of about 25 students and are led by a team that mixed teachers with community facilitators.
This open web meeting is a part of the ongoing discussions of the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion,
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
17 March 2020
Keeping Education Running: WASH Interventions in Schools
  • Bella Monse, Senior Advisor, Fit for School Programme, GIZ
  • Eric Stowe, Founder and Executive Director, Splash
Join us to discuss the importance of WASH programs in disease prevention in response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. We will present technical solutions, material and supply, budget requirements, and management tools to support Ministries of Education integrate daily group handwashing activities into the routine of public schools.  We will also discuss how to balance the hardware and software needs of WASH in schools, as we commemorate World Water Day, whose theme this year is Water and Climate. 
  • What are the barriers to sustained behavior change with handwashing?
  • What tools and systems need to be in place in order to adopt the desired behavior at scale? 
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentations.

Recommended Readings/Resources:
05 March 2020
Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion: Essential to Educating & Supporting the Whole Child
  • Dr. Daniel Laitsch, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University, Chair, WERA International Research Network on Literacy, Learning & Development
  • Douglas McCall, Executive Director, International School health Network
Health & life skills education has always been a poor cousin among the core educational programs actively promoted and studied in countries and at the global level.This is despite the fact that various forms of Health, Personal & Social Development (HPSD) education are included in the core subjects required by many, if not most, education systems around the world. As well, HPSD education is a critical part of a broad range of learning opportunities that should be offered to all students as part of a whole child approach to education & development.Despite the wording in the 2015 Incheon Declaration that include “healthy lifestyles” and “life skills” in the definition of a high quality education and their inclusion within the earlier Education for All Framework, the UN agencies monitoring Target 4.7 of the UN Goals are just now considering these concepts in the next phase of their deliberations.
The FRESH Partnership (www.fresh-partners.org), a coalition  of UN agencies, donors and global NGO’s, has created a Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion to address the gap in global coverage of HPSD education and seek its inclusion within Target 4.7. This FRESH working group is supported by a parallel research network that has been established by the World Education Research Association (WERA) and by a consortium of education and other faculties to work on teacher education & development by the Global Network of Deans of Education (GNDE). An important part of the FRESH WG process includes a Canadian/ global project on preventing violent extremism. This sub-set of activities will create a research/knowledge development agenda (see the working draft/outline) on how several strategies and programs promoting social inclusion can be combined to prevent violent extremism, alienation, violence and other anti-social behaviours.
Participants in the this webinar will learn about this work and be invited to participate in the next phases of the FRESH WG as well as the research and teacher development activities that follow.
This webinar is part of a series in early March 2020 highlighting the work of FRESH Partners in promoting educational success, health and development. These sessions will be part of a FRESH panel presentation at the Comparative Education conference (CIES 2020) in Miami March 20-26, 2020
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
03/04 March, 2020
Promoting the Breadth of Learning Opportunities for All Students
  • Martin Henry, Research Coordinator - Education International
  • Esther Care, Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution
If students are to learn about the inter-connections among their lives, their planet and their futures, then the education provided to them must offer a broad set of learning opportunities.(BOLO) We can no longer accept that teaching and learning is compartmentalized into specialized disciplines and selected core subjects and confined to classroom-based teaching & learning. BOLO has been recognized as a starting point in the development of Target 4.7 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (Learning Metrics Task Force, 2013).  As well, the OECD Education 2030 – Learning Compass initiative (OECD, 2019) is updating the cross-curricular competencies (skills, attitudes and essential knowledge) required as well as defining a broad set of learning goals.Education International, representing the world’s teachers and Brookings Institution (Anderson et al, 2018) have published a report as well as national and school-level planning tools to promote this much needed breadth of learning opportunities.This part of the panel session will focus on this EI-Brookings Initiative.  

This webinar is part of a series in early March 2020 highlighting the work of FRESH Partners in promoting educational success, health and development. These sessions will be part of a FRESH panel presentation at the Comparative Education conference (CIES 2020) in Miami March 20-26, 2020. 
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
03 March 2020
Applications of Behaviour Theories to Health, Life Skills and Inclusion
  • Dr. Daniel Laitsch, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University, Chair, WERA International Research Network on Literacy, Learning & Development
  • Douglas McCall, Executive Director, International School health Network
  • TBC, Leading Researchers on Moral Disengagement Theory
This open web meeting, a part of the ongoing discussions of the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion, will explore the applications of selected behaviour theories related to educational success, health, life skills and social inclusion. Such theories should form the basis for the development, implementation and assessment of policies and programs. Two theories, Self-determination theory and Moral Disengagement theory will be discussed in depth, along with a brief review of other relevant, widely used theories.
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
18 February 2020
Solutions to Understand and Respond to Barriers of Student Attendance and their Well-being
  • Mohini Venkatesh, School Health & Nutrition, Advisor, Save the Children US
  • Max Ritzenberg, Waliku Advisor, Save the Children US
  • Kathryn Cooper, Education Advisor, Save the Children UK
Join us and members of Save the Children's School Health and Nutrition and Education teams to learn more about the different ways in which they assess student absenteeism and drop-outs as we celebrate the International Day of Education, where this year's theme is Learning for people, planet, prosperity and peace.
  • What are the barriers to student attendance?
  • What tools and methods can be used to monitor and measure student attendance in a meaningful way? 
  • What role can the school play in addressing key barriers to school attendance?
  • What are the results of using non-traditional methods to monitor absenteeism? 
  • How can we engage health and child welfare systems to address some of these barriers to school attendance and well-being?
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation

Recommended Readings & Resources
5 December 2019
Social Inclusion, Inclusive Schools: Structural Indicators for Inclusive Systems In and Around Schools
  • Dr. Paul Downes, Director, Educational Disadvantage Centre, Associate Professor of Education (Psychology), Institute of Education, Dublin City University
Inclusive education or inclusive schools have been defined in a variety of ways, often in response to different forms of exclusion based on race, disabilities, income/social status and other forms of discrimination. The European Agency for Inclusive Education and Social Inclusion as “an ideology and an approach to practice that respects the right of all children to receive quality education alongside their peers. Inclusive education is linked with three perspectives, focusing on individuals, systems and values: It involves reducing all forms of exclusion and increasing participation for all; the creation of systems and settings that are responsive to diversity in ways that value everyone equally and most importantly putting particular values into action in education and society. It is, fundamentally, a moral and political project”.

There are various published models or frameworks that promote “inclusive schools”. One type of these models refers to including students with disabilities in regular classes and school activities. However, there are broader models that are closer to the principled and holistic approach noted above. At the global level, the Child Friendly Schools model closely reflects this approach but there are others, including community schools that focus on economic on social disadvantage as well as safe schools models that include a focus on “caring” as well as preventing violence or crime.

This open web meeting will focus on structural indicators associated with inclusive schooling. Dr Downes, will be drawing from a key report to the European Union that views Inclusion as  inclusive  systems  in  and  around  schools, concentrates  on supportive, high-quality  learning  environments, on welcoming  and  caring  schools and classrooms, and on preventing discrimination. The indicators in the report address the emotional, physical, cognitive and social needs of students and recognises their individual talents and voices. Inclusion is open  to  the  voices  and  active  participation  of  parents and also wider  multidisciplinary  teams  and agencies. Inclusive systems  in  and  around  schools particularly focus  on  the  differentiated  needs  of marginalized and vulnerable groups, including those at risk of early school leaving and alienation from society.

This web meeting will encourage participants to contribute the discussion that will form part of a report of the FRESH Partners Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion. Participants are encouraged to review the recordings of earlier web meetings in this series on topics such as health literacy, social & emotional learning and digital/media literacy.
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
15 November 2019
Improving WASH Behaviors among School-age Children Outside of School
  • Abraham Varampath, WASH Advisor, Save the Children UK
  • Steve Sara, WASH Advisor, Save the Children US
Join us and members of Save the Children Global WASH team to learn more about the different ways in which school-age children influence hygiene behaviors as we celebrate World Toilet Day 2019: Leaving No One Behind. This session will address these questions:
  • What tools and methods can be used to engage school-age children in promoting hygiene? 
  • What role can children play in promoting hygiene as caregivers for their younger siblings outside school?
  • What are the results of using incentives such as surprise soap with children's handwashing behavior? 
  • How can children be involved in user-centered designing of toilet infrastructure? 
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Resources & Readings
14 November 2019
Digital & Media Literacy: Essential Skill, Knowledge and Attributes for Inclusion, Health & Safety
  • Mathew Johnson, Director of Research, MediaSmarts Canada
  • Kathryn Hill, Executive Director, MediaSmarts Canada
  • Diane Levin-Zamir, School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Israel, Co-Convenor, Working Group on Health Literacy, IUHPE
To be literate in today’s media-rich environments, young people need to develop knowledge, values and a whole range of critical thinking, communication and information management skills. Citizens who lack digital literacy skills risk being disadvantaged when it comes to accessing healthcare, government services and employment, education and civic participation. Digital literacy is a key part of learning about history, health and other subjects and is not confined to computer science or language arts/communications. It is a part of our collective and individual citizenship. Music, TV, video games, magazines and other media all have a strong influence on how we see the world, an influence that often begins in infancy. To be engaged and critical media consumers, kids need to develop skills and habits of media literacy. These skills include being able to access media on a basic level, to analyze it in a critical way based on certain key concepts, to evaluate it based on that analysis and, finally, to produce media oneself.

The digital world and the overwhelming influences of media offer young people opportunities but also pose significant risks. Parents, schools and policy-makers are struggling to find ways to reduce these risks of bullying, self-harm, hate-driven ideologies, isolation and alienation. Digital and media literacy (DML) is an essential element of comprehensive approaches to promote social inclusion that can prevent these extreme behaviours as well as address every day challenges facing young people. Digital and media literacy are critical elements of a core health, personal and social development education program. 

This session will define and discuss how digital and media literacy should be essential learning across all subjects and used in a variety of school-linked extended educational opportunities in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities in and outside of school, in the community and on the web. The promotion of social inclusion, basic literacy related to health, safety and security and the development of life skills/social responsibility through DML will be a primary consideration underlying the session. If there is research defining the minimum DML student learning outputs in health, personal & social development education, these will be discussed. If there is insufficient research and data in HPSD education, participants may choose to discuss how this could be or has been done.
Here are the web links to the recording and presentation slides.

Recommended Resources & Readings
12 November, 2019
Social & Emotional Learning: An Essential for Health, Inclusion and Preventing Violence
  • David Osher, Vice-President, American Institutes for Research
  • Elizabeth Spier, Principal Researcher, American Institutes for Research
Human development occurs through reciprocal interactions between the individual and their contexts and culture, with relationships as the key drivers. Consequently, social development & emotional intelligence are at the heart of learning. The lens we have constructed to explain these interactions is often called "social & emotional learning that can teqch selected "life skills" or promote "personal & social development". Recent insights gleaned from research suggest that relationships and the micro-contexts experienced by children and youth (such as schools, families, neighbourhoods) interact with brain and other traits of the child resulting in external and internal behaviours, attitudes and acquired knowledge.   

Social & emotional attributes are often described in five categories; including those being used by an OECD study on SEL.These include open-mindedness  task performance, emotional regulation, engaging with others and collaboration. CASEL has a similar list of five, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making. Again, recent research suggests that the various categories may need to be more detailed and are more complex than suggested by such lists.

The effectiveness of multi-intervention programs and comprehensive approaches to promote and support social and emotional learning (SEL) has been demonstrated in numerous studies. The current questions revolve more around the best combination of instruction, social support within the school, parent and community involvement. As well, the measurement of SEL student learning is being studied and explored by a group of researchers. One urgent element is the impact of SEL programs on social inclusion and the prevention of anti-social behaviours, student alienation, isolation and violent extremism.

Social & Emotional learning is one of the behavioural/learning paradigms being examined by the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion. We are pleased to welcome two leading scientists to help us to understand how the SEL approach can be used to promote health, personal and social development.

This session will define and discuss how social & emotional learning should be considered essential across all subjects and used in a variety of school-linked extended educational opportunities in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities in and outside of school, in the community and on the web. The promotion of social inclusion, basic literacy related to health, safety and security and the development of life skills/social responsibility through SEL will be a primary consideration underlying the session. If there is research defining the minimum SEL student learning outputs in health, personal & social development education, these will be discussed. If there is insufficient research and data in HPSD education, participants may choose to discuss how this could be or has been done.
Here are the web links to the recording and presentation slides.

Recommended Resources & Readings
15 October 2019
Holistic school-based food and nutrition education for healthy and sustainable diets
  • Fatima Hachem, Team Leader, Nutrition Education and Consumer Awareness Group, FAO  
  • Melissa Vargas, International Nutrition Consultant, FAO 
  • Yenory Hernandez, International Nutrition Consultant, FAO 
Join us and FAO’s Nutrition Education and Consumer Awareness Group to learn more about SFNE, as we celebrate World Food Day: Our actions are our future- Healthy diets for a Zero Hunger World.
  • What is the role of school-based food and nutrition education (SFNE) in promoting healthy and sustainable diets?
  • What is the current SFNE situation in low and middle-income countries (LMICs)?
  • What is needed to improve SFNE’s impact on children’s diets in LMICs?
  • What is FAO doing to support governments in enhancing the effectiveness and scope of SFNE interventions?
Here is the web link to the recording.

Recommended Resources & Readings
17 September 2019
Programming for Children's Social and Emotional Well-being - Lessons from Iraq
  • Dr. Allyson Krupar, Senior Specialist, Save the Children USA
  • Ms. Gentjana Gjergji, BPRM Project Manager, Save the Children International
Join us and Save the Children colleagues from Washington DC/ USA, and Kurdistan/ Iraq, as they share their experience of promoting and measuring social-emotional learning in an emergency context, on our webinar commemorating World Mental Health Day.  
  • What is social-emotional learning and how does it happen in schools in Iraq?
  • How do we measure children's social and emotional skills and well-being in emergency and tenuous environments?
  • What tools can we use to evaluate the effect of social-emotional learning activities on children's competencies?
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
15 August 2019
The Blue Schools Kit - an approach for healthy and environmentally friendly schools  
  • Daya Moser, Coordinator, Swiss Water and Sanitation Consortium
  • Lucie Lecert, Consultant, Swiss Water and Sanitation Consortium
Join us and the Swiss Water and Sanitation Consortium as we celebrate International Youth Day to learn more about Blue Schools.  
  • How do you transform a school to being healthy and environmentally friendly using low-cost technologies?
  • What activities can inspire students to becoming the next generation of WASH and environment champions to meet SDG 6 targets?
  • How does a consortium mechanism work to massively improve water and sanitation coverage while also triggering innovation and knowledge sharing?
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings & Resources
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16 July, 2019
Understanding the Enabling Environment for Teaching and Learning: Recent Advances
  • Elizabeth Spier, PhD, Principal Researcher, American Institutes for Research
What conditions are required for students and their educators to build their capacity for effective teaching-learning, social interaction and development?

What is the effect of psychosocial stress on educator and student capacities for learning and good decision making?

What are the recent advances in neurobiology that help us to understand how socio-emotional dynamics work and why they are important? 

Join us and the American Institutes for Research as we celebrate World Youth Skills Day to learn more about the interplay of biological, relational and contextual factors that shape learning outcomes .  
Here are the web links to recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings/Resources
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14 June 2019
Multilevel Parenting Package for Life Skills Promotion in Challenged and Humanitarian Settings 
  • Dr. Wadih Maalouf, Global Programme Manager, Drug Prevention and Health Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, Vienna-Austria
  • Dr Aala El-Khani,  Consultant at Drug Prevention and Health Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Honorary Research Associate, University of Manchester, Manchester-United Kingdom
What evidence-based approaches to reduce risky behaviors and promote positive mental health are available in challenged and humanitarian settings? 

How can caregivers be better parents and strengthen positive age-appropriate family functioning and general interactions? 

What open-access packages exist for a tiered approach to family skills promotion? 

Join us to learn more about family skills interventions promoted by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), as FRESH commemorates the "International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking".
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentation.

Recommended Readings/Resources
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15 May 2019
Menstrual Hygiene Management: Unique Experiences from the Philippines and Mexico 
  • Dr. Ella Naliponguit, Director III, Bureau of Learner Support Services (BLSS), Department of Education, Philippines
  • Sofia Garza, Program Lead, Construye Igualdad, Save the Children, Mexico
  • Jeanne L. Long, Director, School Health and Nutrition, Save the Children, US
What are the MHM interventions of the comprehensive WASH in School package, practices, and measures in the Philippines? 

How does the Philippines monitor MHM for quality assurance and recognize schools for their successful implementation?

How does menstrual hygiene and puberty education fit within the CHOICES Gender Transformative Curriculum in Mexico?

What are the challenges and opportunities for training teachers to deliver CHOICES and puberty sessions across schools in Mexico?

Learn more about the integration of MHM within the Philippines' Three Star Approach to WASH in Schools, and the integration of MHM in CHOICES within the #WeSeeEqual project in Mexico -  this May as FRESH partners commemorate Menstrual Hygiene Day 2019
Here is the web link to the recording

Recommended Readings/Resources
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16 April 2019
Re-imagining school health- maximizing investment in human capital and rural economies..
  • Lesley Drake, PhD, Executive Director, Partnership for Child Development (PCD)
  • Linda Schultz, Health and Education Consultant
The past few years have seen a sea change in how the world invests; its young people, well beyond early childhood and all the way into their transition towards adulthood. As the World Bank's Human Capital Index shows, people are an economy's main source of wealth, yet very undervalued in low and middle-income contexts (LMICs). This underachievement of human capital is reflected in young people's health, knowledge, and resilience. 

  • How can school health and feeding programs contribute to efforts to help children and adolescents reach their full potential and maximize human capital in LMICs?
  • How can the school health community position itself within a new investment landscape? 
Commemorating World Health Day and its clarion call for universal health care, we invite co-authors of a Discussion Paper on Health, Finance, and Governance for USAID to share their knowledge and recommendations for maximizing human capital through school health.
Here are the web link to the recording and slide presentation

Recommended Readings/Resources
15 March 2019
Managing Operation and Maintenance  – what does it take to reach the SDGs for WASH in Schools?  
  • Bella Monse, Principal Advisor, Fit for School, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),  
  • Ing. Ubo Pakes, Consultant, Philippines
  • Jan Schlenk, WASH Policy Advisor, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),  
This session will Introduce a costing tool to calculate the budget need for schools to provide the basic service level for drinking water, usable sanitation, and handwashing with soap. The tool provides school heads with an easy to manage app, which calculates the annual cost per student depending on local condition and local prices. 
  • How much do they need to keep aside for consumables, and cleaning staff for managing each facility?
  • How many facilities can they properly maintain with the budget they have?
Commemorating World Water Day and its call for leaving no one behind in meeting the SDG WASH targets, we welcome colleagues from GIZ to share their newly developed mobile app that will help school administrators to safely manage their WASH facilities
Here are the web links to the recording and slide presentations.

Recomended Resources/Readings
15 February 2019
20 Years of Experience in Integrated School Health and Nutrition Programming
  • Seung Lee, Senior Director, Department of Education and Child Protection, Save the Children USA
What are Save the Children's achievements in its 20 years of experience with school health and nutrition programming? What are the elements of its integrated programming in health and nutrition for school-age children? What are the priorities for Save the Children as it looks forward to the next decade and meeting the SDGs for education, health, gender and WASH? Commemorating the very first International Day of Education and its call for inclusive and equitable quality education, we welcome the senior director for school health and nutrition at Save the Children USA to answer these questions and share her 2030 vision for children's well-being.
Here are the web links to the recording and slides.

Recommended Readings & Resources
23 January 2019
Instructional & Learning Time Matters in Health/Life Skills Education
  • Susan K. Telljohann, Professor Emeritus, Health Education,
    The University of Toledo
Despite earlier research evidence done in the 1980’s[i],[ii] as well as the common-sense logic that the dose, duration and intensity of an intervention will affect its effectiveness, the status, quality and time allotments for HPSD education are not being monitored in policy/ program surveys or examined in research studies. When asked in surveys, practitioners appear to be unable to answer questions asking them to estimate the instructional time being delivered.

The questions included in policy/program surveys developed by FRESH, the World Bank and the World Health Organization do not include any estimation or reporting on HPSD instructional time. The last global survey asking countries if they had a core health/life skills education program was done by UNICEF in 2007[iii].

This open web meeting will ask invited experts, practitioners and participants to jointly develop some hypotheses about the amount of instructional time truly being delivered in high resource, low resource and conflict/disaster-affected countries. These estimates of the time available and being delivered will then be used by the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion to develop hypotheses of realistic student learning outcomes for monitoring by countries and the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal #4 (Education - Target 4.7). It can also lead to a resurgence of research on the amount of time needed or used by the parallel WERA International Research Group on HPSD learning. 

[i] Connell DB, Turner RR, Mason EF. (1985) Summary of findings of the School Health Education Evaluation: health promotion effectiveness, implementation, and costs, J Sch Health. 1985 Oct;55(8):316-21. concluded that while a few hours can have an impact on knowledge, 40-50 hours is necessary for attitudes and behaviours
[ii] Allensworth DD (1993) Health Education: State of the Art, Journal of School Health, Vol 63, Issue 1 pp 14-20 reported studies showing the positive cumulative effect of three years of health education
[iii] UNICEF (2007). Stocktaking of life skills-based education. Occasional paper. New York. UNICEF - found that 145 out of 157 countries had a life skills curriculum
Here are the web links to the recorded webinar and slides.

Recommended Resources/Readings
21 January 2019
Literacy in Health & Personal Safety: One Key Output for HPSD Education
  • Orkan Okan, Interdisciplinary Centre for Health Literacy Research, Faculty of Educational Science, Bielefeld University
  • Leena Paakkari, Research Center for Health Promotion, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä
Health Literacy and related knowledge about personal safety is one of the key outputs for Health, Personal & Social Development (HPSD) education around the world. Contextually relevant applications need to be developed for each country but functional knowledge of risks and benefits, the ability to access help or care and the skills to discern misleading messages from others is universal. The challenge is to enable countries to define, measure and monitor student learning in a realistic way. This challenge is complicated by the varying definitions of HL, its overlap with media literacy and general literacy and the tendency by some to inflate the concept to optimal levels of HPSD learning that are not achievable by all students. As well, the LHS outputs derived primarily from HPSD education are sometimes conflated with the improvements in conditions and behaviours derived from multi-component school health promotion approaches.

This session  will offer a definition of the HL (including personal safety) and then develop ideas as to how it applies not only to physical health issues but overall personal and social development. This will include a discussion of its implications for reaching alienated youth and helping to prevent these troubled youth from being recruited into extremist views or movements.  The session will also review some of the current surveys and tools being used to measure and monitor HL in different contexts.

The session is part of a series of open web meetings that are developing knowledge and hypotheses for the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion. The findings of the WG will be taken up by a parallel International Research Network sponsored by the World Education Research Association.   
 Here is the web link to the recorded web meeting and slides

Recommended Resources/Readings
11 January 2019
Extended Educational Opportunities in the School Day and Community: Putting the Pieces Together for Health, Personal and Social Development
  • Ludwig Stecher, Professor, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
  • Gil Noam, Professor, McLean Hospital & Harvard Medical School
  • Daniel Laitsch, Professor, Simon Fraser University

After-school programs, school routines, student projects in the community and extra-curricular activities are often used to educate students and develop young people on a wide variety of specific topics. Evaluations of these projects often show promising short-term results.But often these extended education (EE) opportunities are isolated from each other and from the defined learning outputs in the core curriculum. The FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion is studying the potential of greater coherence and coordination in EE activities and has listed several in its scoping paper for the WG. Members of the WERA International Research Network on Teaching & Learning for Health, Safety, Life Skills, Personal, Social & Sustainable Development will take up the research questions identified by the FRESH Working Group. This open web meeting discussion will explore the state of the art and science in extended education with a view identifying potential research, policy and program options.
Here are the web links to the recorded web meeting and slide presentation.

Recommended Resources/Readings
14 December 2018
Competency-based and Cross-Curricular Approaches: Implications for Health, Personal & Social Development Education
  • Liane Comeau, Executive Director, International Union for Health Promotion & Education (Former Manager/Researcher School Health, Institut pour la sante publique du Quebec)
  • Suzanne Hargreaves, Senior Education Officer, Education Scotland

This open web meeting discussion is part of the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion that is defining the scope and minimum learning outputs for Health, Personal & Social Development (HPSD) education. Competency-based curriculum frameworks define over-arching goals for all subjects. Cross-curricular projects are often used by teachers in primary schools and are increasingly considered as part of project-based learning at all levels, This web meeting will examine the implications of these two related approaches for student achievement in HPSD. Part of this discussion will note the relevance of having a generic description of the HPSD knowledge, skills and attitudes included in the curriculum documents or guidance as an intermediary step between the overall, all subject competency-frameworks and any specific topics or generic skills identified as a priorities in the curricula. 

Ms Comeau will describe the analysis of the positioning of HPSD education done in Quebec when the province introduced a cross-curricular competency framework for all grades.Ms Hargreaves will describe the Scottish curriculum that requires all teachers to promote health & well-being. 
Here is the link to the recorded web meeting and the presentation slides.

Recommended Resources/Readings
15 November 2018
Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools - SDG Baseline Report & The Philippine Case Study
  • Tom Slaymaker and Christine Chatterly, WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene.
  • Abram Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines & GIZ
What are the key messages in the Global Baseline Report on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools? How far are countries from meeting basic WASH services in schools that are child-, gender and disability- sensitive? What actions are countries taking to meet basic WASH services for all learners and reduce inequalities, as part of their commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal on Education (Goal 4)?

Commemorating World Toilet Day 2018 and its call for Safe Toilets by 2030, we welcome the WHO/ UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene and the Department of Education & GIZ in the Republic of the Philippines to answer these questions and share recommendations for improving school water, sanitation and hygiene.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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15 October 2018
Preschools as a Platform for Improving Diet and Reducing Stunting
  • Aulo Gelli, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute
Can Preschools or Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers be a venue for promoting nutritious food consumption among young children?
Can an integrated agriculture and nutrition intervention through an ECD center benefit children’s diet and reduce stunting? 
What are the various implications of introducing such interventions in preschools?
Commemorating World Food Day 2018 and its vision of a #ZeroHunger World by 2030, we welcome the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to share global evidence and findings from a recent study in Malawi supporting the nexus between nutrition and young child development
Here is the link to the recorded webinar
(Note: There was a technical problem with the video component of this recording. You can follow the presentation using the presenter's slides.)


Suggested Readings/Resources
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Monday 17 September 2018
Eye Health Promotion in Schools: Components and Costs
Why is eye health promotion in schools important? What are its components?

What are the cost drivers and costs for school-based vision screening at scale? 

Join us as we listen to vision experts from Sightsavers and learn from their projects in Cambodia and Ghana.

We will be commemorating World Sight Day 2018 and celebrating the spirit of their campaign call of Eye Care Everywhere.  

Featured Speakers:
  • Imran Khan, Chief Global Technical Lead & Director, School Health Integrated Program, Sightsavers 
  • Guillaume Trotignon, Research Associate, Sightsavers
Here are the links to the recorded webinar.and slide presentation.

Suggested Readings/Resources
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Wednesday 15 August, 2018
Promoting Physical Activity in Schools
How do you integrate physical activity into school programs given the constraints of space and time? An opportunity to learn from Save the Children’s experience in the Americas:
  • El Salvador's health program that promotes healthy lifestyles focusing on nutrition, physical and emotional health. 
  • Bolivia’s “moving recess” and other strategies, what works better and why
  • Healthy Choices in the United States, exploring the successes and challenges of monitoring and evaluating outcomes
Join us and speakers from Save the Children for this session commemorating International Youth Day to learn more!  

Featured Speakers: (Jeanne Long as Discussant)
  • Margarita Franco, Save the Children El Salvador
  • Augusto Costas (for Alfredo Juaniquina), Save the Children Bolivia  
  • Lesley Graham, Save the Children USA
Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

Suggested Readings/Resources
Monday, 16 July, 2018
Health, Personal & Social Development Education & Learning: The Possibilities, the Pitfalls & the Practical
  • David Selby, Director of Sustainability Frontiers will describe the lessons learned from work that his organization is doing to combine community and school-based educational programming, cross curricular learning and the use of extra-curricular and co-curricular activities as means to deliver effective education in several contexts
  • Doug McCall, Executive Director of the International School Health Network, will discuss the practical implications of the findings of a quick search of HPSD curricula done for the FRESH WG and the US-based School Health Policies & Practices Survey. These include alternative curriculum structures, generic skills vs health topics and teaching time recommendations and realities.
  • Daniel Laitsch, Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Chair, International Research Network, World Education Research Association (WERA) will comment on associated policy and research needs and invite participation in the IRN supporting the FRESH Working Group.
This session will explore the scope of school-based and school-linked education and learning about health, life skills, social development and sustainable, equitable development with a view to identifying the many possible delivery methods in and out of school, the pitfalls relating to the very wide scope of this social role of schooling as well as in the various methods/entry points and the practical realities and capacities of school systems in different contexts (low resource, high resource and conflict/disaster-affected)

The FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills & Social Inclusion is using a systems-based concept (adsorption capacity) as well as a basic tenet of the FRESH Framework that recommends that school programs focus their resources on a limited number of issues or skills most relevant to their students. The WG has defined the wide scope of HPSD education. The next step was to develop estimates of how much teaching/learning time in classrooms, in the school day and outside of the school is available.

However, it appears that very few countries and very few researchers have defined or monitored the time required or available for HPSD. Consequently, this session, and a follow up crowd-sourcing consultation will seek alternative ways to better understand how teaching/learning time/capacity can be enhanced using the possible means & methods, discuss their potential use and some of the pitfalls that should be avoided and some practical steps that countries can take to improve HPSD education.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar and presentation slides

Suggested Readings/Resources

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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Wednesday July 11, 2018
The Education Workforce Initiative of the Education Commission: Research & Teacher Development Questions
  • Amy Bellinger, Education Workforce Initiative, UN Education Commission
  • Katie Godwin, Education Workforce Initiative, UN Education Commission
  • Olawale Moronkola, Professor of Health Education and Curriculum Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Teacher shortages will impact many countries, especially in vulnerable contexts and in key subject areas such as science and mathematics. New approaches are needed. But increasing the supply of qualified teachers alone will not be enough.To succeed young people need to learn 21st century and other skills as well as achieve the basics of literacy and numeracy, which is still a formidable challenge for many countries.The role of the teacher – and that of supporting figures – should be strengthened to meet these challenges.

In response, the Education Commission has created the Education Workforce Initiative (EWI) to bring fresh thinking to education workforce design and strengthening, looking at the changing role of teachers and other roles within the education workforce as recommended in the Commission's Learning Generation report.

EWI has completed its initial scan of relevant research and drafted an outline of its planned report that is intended to serve as a practical resource for policymakers as well as inform EWI's work at country level.

This webinar and discussion will introduce the main lines of research inquiry being undertaken and provide an update on EWI planned activities, including opportunities for input. This significant policy initiative is relevant to all concerned with education at the global level and to those within countries who are responsible for developing or advising on education workforce development .
Following questions and discussions of the implications of the EWI initiaitve, participants will be invited to suggest ways that the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion, the WERA International Research Network and a Consortium of Education and Other Faculties can respond to the issues being addressed by the EWI. Representatives of the World Education Research Association, the HPSD International Research Network and the FRESH Working Group will be on hand to start the discussion after the presentations.

A special invitation is being extended to Deans of Education around the world to become engaged in this issue so that different specialist networks can collaborate in responding.

The social role of the school in promoting equitable educational opportunity, health and development is one of the themes in the initial EWI review. Teachers, especially in low resource contexts, are often asked to provide support to students with health and other needs as well as alleviate various conditions and problems. The EWI review (p.4) suggests that teams of professionals from health, social work, development agencies and others be formed to ease the burden on teachers. The main purpose of the Global Consortium of Education and Other Faculties (GCEOF) will be to identify workforce development strategies to enhance such inter-professional, inter-sectoral cooperation. A scoping framework for a workforce development strategy for HPSD education will be introduced at the end of this webinar for followup online discussions and a symposium being held at the Global Conference of the World Education Research Association (WERA) in Cape Town August 2-5, 2018. 
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar and presentation slides

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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15 June, 2018
Renewing the Health Promoting Schools Approach​- June ​2018​
  • Ben Faten Abdelaziz, World Health Organization, 
  • Didier Jourdan,  University of Clermont-Auvergne
  • Goof Buijs, Schools for Health Consultancy
  • Yuka Makino, World Health Organization 
​What is the WHO's strategy for Health Promoting Schools and how is that linked with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the WHO's 13th General Programme of Work? What learnings do the School for Health in Europe Network provide to fill gaps between policy and practice in high and low resource settings? What are the next steps for a renewed Health Promoting Schools Approach? 
Here is the link to the recorded webinar

Suggested Readings & Resources
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15 May, 2018
Menstrual Hygiene for Girls –A Cups Pilot and Trial from Western Kenya & New Measurement Approaches
  • Penelope Phillips-Howard, Ph.D., Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
  • Jackie Haver, Save the Children USA
What are the results of a pilot feasibility study and follow-up trial from Kisumu, Western Kenya, testing the value of providing menstrual cups to school girls? What effect domenstrual-specific versus broader interventions have on adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive health; school enrolment, retention, and attainment; and at what cost? What new tools are under development to assess the outcomes of menstrual health programming on girls' related self-efficacy, stress, and school participation?
Here are the web links to the recorded webinar
and slide presentation.

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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2nd May, 2018
International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education
  • Ms Jenelle Babb, UNESCO Education Sector, Section of Health and Education, UNESCO, Paris
  • Mr Julius  Nghifikwa, Deputy Director, HIV/AIDS Management Unit (HAMU), Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, Namibia.
This webinar will orient participants to the revised UN International technical guidance on sexuality education, highlighting the resource’s new and expanded content, informed by an updated review of evidence and accompanying review of teaching materials on sexuality education. The presentation of the revised technical guidance will note the rationale and process for the update, the main ways in which the revised edition differs from the original as well as those key features that have been retained.  A second presentation by the Ministry of Education, Namibia will explore their experience of implementing comprehensive sexuality education at country level and open the discussion among webinar participants  to examine ways in which this resource can be used to support current or planned programmes on sexuality education for young people at national and regional levels, and how best to respond to various partners and stakeholders who may express interest or concern about using the technical guidance in their context.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar

Suggested Readings/Resources:
16 April, 2018
School Health & Development as described in Disease Control Priorities, Volume 8
  • Don Bundy, The Gates Foundation
From its inception, the Disease Control Priorities series has focused attention on delivering efficacious health interventions that can result in dramatic reductions in mortality and disability at relatively modest cost. The approach has been multidisciplinary, and the recommendations have been evidence-based, scalable, and adaptable in multiple settings.
 Here is the web link to the recorded webinar and slides.

Suggested Readings/Resources:
4 April, 2018
Open Web Meeting: Promoting Healthy Diet through Schools in Low Resource Countries
  • Presenters/Discussants: Melissa Vargas (UN Food & Agriculture Organization), Roland Kupka (UNICEF), Juana Willumsen (World Health Organization), Mutinta Hambayi (World Food Program), Doug McCall, Executive Director, International School Health Network
The presenters will describe some of their initiatives related to promoting healthy diet in low resource contexts. This webinar will also discuss the findijngs of a rapid review of research, reports and resources on promoting healthy diet/food choices and preventing overweight. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar.

Suggested Readings/Resources:The draft review of research, reports and resources will be available as an open Google Document  which enables sharing & editing, while retaining previous versions. Participants in the web meeting and all others are encouraged to post their comments or edits online or simply send them to dmccall@internationalschoolhealth.org
19 March, 2018
What We Know and Need to Know about Promoting Physical Activity in Schools in Low Resource Countries
  • Valter Cordeiro Barbosa Filho, Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceara, Brazil
This webinar will first examine the research evidence identified in a review of PA programs on low and ,middle income countries. Practice-based implications and recommendations will be identified and then examined in the light of the guidance provided hy WHO and organizations such as the International Society for Physical Activity and Health. A summary report based on a review of reports and resources from several databases as well as from research reviews that are relevant to low resource countries will be introduced. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar and presentation slides

This webinar will be followed by an on-line and email discussion of a summary of better practices in promoting PA in LRC schools. The outline being used to prepare this summary can be found in this google document. A number of experts and organizations will be invited to comment on the outline and the draft summary, using the same Google Doc format where the URL remains constant but the draft versions are updated. The document is open for comments from everyone, so please add your comments or send them directly to:dmccall@internationalschoolhealth.org. .

Suggested Readings/Resources:
15 March, 2018
Oral health Promotion in school settings – best practice examples, research results and challenges
  • Dr Bella Monse​(GIZ), ​Principal Advisor, FIT for School Program
  • Denise Duijster Academisch Centrum Tandheelkunde (ACTA), Amersterdam
  • Habib Benzian Adjunct Professor, New York University
Oral diseases are among the most common diseases worldwide, particularly for school-age children and adolescents. They pose significant public health problems for all countries and entail substantial health, social, and economic impacts. Simple and effective interventions exist to prevent most oral diseases. The school setting, among others, plays an important role. Specific focus will be on the integration of oral health promotion into Wash in Schools programming. Results from a multi country study in South East Asia will be presented and discussed.
Here are the web links to the recorded webinar
and slide presentation.

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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6 March 2018
Open Meeting on the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion
  • Members of the WG
This session will discuss the activities and work plan of the FRESH Working Group on Health Literacy, Life Skills and Social Inclusion. Participation from all concerned with the delivery of health, personal and social development (HPSD) education in low resource, high resource and conflict/disaster-affected countries and regions is welcome. The WG is addressing the challenge of including the many issues and educational paradigms related to educational success, health and development in the limited time/capacity available in core HPSD school curricula, extra and co-curricular activities, school routines and in other subjects. Help us to get this WG off to a good start by participating and offering suggestions!
Here are the web links to the recorded webinar.and slides

Suggested Readings/Resources
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1st March, 2018
 Promoting Mental Health by Improving School Climate: The Bihar (India) Trial
  • Sachin Shinde,PhD, Research Director, SEHER & PRIDE Projects, Sangath, Goa, India
Sangath is India's 4th leading Public Health Research Institute. The non-profit organization has delivered several successful school-based and school-linked research projects and programs as part of its SEHER program in India, a low and middle income mega-country with wide variations in incomes and other resources. This webinar will examine the SEHER study that investigated the impact of two interventions (delivered by teachers or by lay counselors) to improve school climate as a strategy to promote mental health and social inclusion. The SEHER program has and is testing other components of a comprehensive approach.

This webinar is the second of of two sessions which have illustrated how schools in low resource settings can promote MH. This session on psycho-social support complements the earlier session on a MH literacy approach that promotes help-seeking, reduces stigma and increases teacher awareness. As part of the webinar, a draft summary and statements on promoting MH in LRC's will be tabled and participants invited to comment and edit subsequently online. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar.

Suggested Readings/Resources:
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Thursday, 15 February 2018
How did Anna get her Banana? – Food and Nutrition in Schools (FANS)
  • Dr Caroline Hilari, Advisor, School Health and Nutrition
  • Ms. Jeanne Long, Senior Specialist, School Health and Nutrition from Save the Children
How do you ensure different sources of food and nutrition in schools? Join us to learn about various school-based nutrition interventions, with examples from Save the Children’s experience in Latin America on school store regulations and decreasing junk food sales in schools.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar. 

Suggested Readings/Resources Join us in a drafting a summary and series of statements on promoting healthy eating/preventing overweight through schools in low resource countries. (Outline now available, Draft to be launched in late February)
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Wednesday 15 November, 2017
Community-Led School Sanitation Construction: Improving sanitation infrastructure in hard-to-reach areas​​
  • Katherine Pizzacalla Chief Advisor,​Fit for School ARMM Program, GIZ
The webinar will discuss the strategy used by the Department of Education and GIZ to provide support to improve sanitation infrastructure in selected schools in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Philippines. The concept was developed as an alternative strategy to improve toilets in schools in conflict-affected areas where external construction teams could not access. The strategy focuses on School Based Management and the role of the School Community, led by the School Head, to ensure the construction is completed.​
Here are the web links to the recorded webinar and slide presentation and slide presentation.

Readings/Resources
For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and the ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox


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Friday, 13 October, 2017
Promoting Mental Health, Providing Psycho-Social Support in Schools in Low Resource Countries
  • Dr. Stan Kutcher, IWK Health Centre, Dalhousie University, Canada
Dr. Stan Kutcher is the Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health and the Director World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Mental Health Policy and Training. He is a renowned expert in adolescent mental health and leader in mental health research, advocacy, training, and policy and has been involved in mental health work in over 20 countries. His work in several low resource countries offers insights on how mental health programs and teacher training can be delivered and sustained in such countries. He and his colleagues in those countries have successfully adapted an instructional program and teacher training in mental health literacy.

Subsequent to Dr. Kutcher's remarks, participants will discuss some of the findings of a review of relevant research, reports and resources that is being prepared to summarize what we know and need to know in school mental health in low resource countries. One of these issues will be to clarify what is meant and what is to be achieved through school programs.Is it managing MH problems and illnesses? reducing stigma? ensuring basic MH literacy (ie knowledge and skills required to access information and support or is it broader encompassing broader skills such as social & emotional learning, emotional well-being or "positive mental health". Are there positive or negative aspects of mental health that are more relevant to low resource countries? This discussion will include questions related to the essential nature of MH programs in LRC's. Should the focus be on mobilizing various forms of "psycho-social" support from educators and the community or should we use the school to deliver cost-effective MH services? A follow up webinar will examine these and other issues in depth and help to prepare a summary of issues and better practices. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
 Here are the web links to the webinar recording.and the presentation slides

Suggested Readings:
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Tuesday, 19 September, 2017
The School Health Integrated Programming (SHIP) initiative- Promoting Vision & Hearing
  • Imran Khan, Chief Global Technical Lead, Sightsavers
  • Dr Laura Appleby, Partnership for Child Development, Imperial College London
​The School Heath Integrating Programming (SHIP) initiative is a global programme that supports governments in Cambodia, Senegal, Ghana and Ethiopia to strengthen and integrate their school health programmes. ​

The initiative​ is collaboration between the World Bank,  Imperial College London's Partnership for Child Development (PCD)and Sightsavers with funding from the Global Partnership for Education.
A component of this programme has been supporting the training of teachers in the basic skills necessary for the early identification of pupils with vision and hearing challenges or intellectual disabilities. Once identified the children can then be referred for early medical treatment​
 Here is the web link to the recording (Part One), (Part Two)

Suggested Readings: For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and the ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox
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Monday, 15 August, 2017
Global oral health promotion strategy: integrating oral health promotion into general health promotion through sugars reduction and targeting schoolchildren.
  • Prof Paula Moynihan -  Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nutrition and Oral Health at Newcastle University, UK​
Prof Moynihan will be presenting on a strategies to integrate oral health promotion into general health programmes through reducing sugar intake and the targeting of messages at school children. ​​Topics to be covered include:
  • Oral health status of children
  • WHO Oral Health Strategy
  • Links between oral health and general health: the common risk factors
  • WHO Guideline on Sugars Intake
  • Current sugars intake by children and adults
  • Implications of WHO Guideline for policy and practice- approaches to reducing sugars consumption
  • Sugars reduction and oral health promotion–the whole school approac
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar

Here are the slides used in the presentation.

Suggested Readings: For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and the ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox


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Monday, 17 July 2017
WHO Guidance on Promoting Healthy Diet and Physical Activity through Schools
  • Leendert Nerderveen and 
  • Yuka Makino - WHO
Yuka Makino, Technical Officer on Health Promotion at WHO will introduce WHO's Global School Health Initiative and Health Promoting Schools and the latest guidance from WHO. She will be followed by her colleague Leo Nederveen, Technical Officer in the Surveillance and Population-based Prevention who will introduce WHO's Guidance on Promoting Diet and Physical Activity in School Settings
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar

Here are the slides used in the presentation.

Suggested Readings:
For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and this extensive ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox
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Thurs, 13 July, 2017
Round Table Discussion: Summarizing What We Know about Substance Abuse Prevention in Low Resource Countries
  • Wadih Maalouf Programme Coordinator, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Yongfeng Liu, Programme Specialist, UNESCO
  • Isidore Obot, Director, Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA), Uyo, Nigeria (TBC)
Following up on an earlier webinar on what the research and practice says about effective SA prevention programs, this open round table discussion will gather and summarize what practices can be more effective in low resource contexts. Several experts will be asked to comment on the statements derived from a review of research, reports and resources to publish a policy/program summary. Participants will also consider next steps in launching a series of webinars on different aspects of SA prevention in all contexts. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar and to the slides used for the presentation.

Here are the slides with the draft statements used in the discussion.

Documents for this session: This webinar is organized by members of the FRESH Partnership. The preparation of the review, draft statements and related materials is being done by Plan International (UK) and the International School Health Network. .

For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and this extensive ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox




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15 June, 2017
Substance Abuse Prevention in Low Resource Countries: What We Know and Need to Know
  • Wadih Maalouf Programme Coordinator, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Aala El-Khani, Research Associate, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, UK
  • Isidore Obot, Director, Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA), Uyo, Nigeria.
  • Hanna Heikklia, Programme Officer, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
Facilitator, including Pre & Post Session Consultation: Doug McCall, Executive Director, International School Health Network

Following up on the recent publication of a UNODC-UNESCO-WHO guidance document for the education sector, this session will review and discuss the research and practice on programs preventing substance abuse, including alcohol and tobacco, in low resource countries. This webinar will be interactive, with remarks from several experts and practitioners, leading into a discussion among all attendees. Different aspects, effective strategies and challenges will be discussed. A series of findings from a recent review of research, reports and resources relevant to low resource countries, presented in the form of a mini-Delphi consultation, will be circulated and discussed as a backdrop and eventual product of the session and followup. This session is part of a series sponsored by the Young Health program  of Plan International-UK and Astra Zeneca.
Here is the web link to the recorded webinar.

Documents for this session: This webinar is organized by members of the FRESH Partnership. The preparation of the review, draft statements and related materials is being done by Plan International (UK) and the International School Health Network. .

For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse, the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and this extensive ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox


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17 May 2017
Menstrual Hygiene Management in Emergencies - Global guidelines and lessons learned from the Philippines
  • Marni Sommer, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
  • Jon Michael Villasenor​, UNICEF Philippines
Marni Sommer will be discussing the soon to be published Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in Emergencies Toolkit, developed by Columbia University and the International Rescue Committee in partnership with the global humanitarian response community.  The toolkit provides guidance on the assessment and interventions for a cross-sectoral MHM response in emergency contexts. It is expected to inform the existing humanitarian response guidelines for the range of relevant sectors including WASH, protection, education, health, shelter & camp management. ​
​Jon Villasenor's presentation will be on the MHM response to the typhoon Haiyan, in particular on the recovery period of the disaster in the school sector. MHM lessons learnt from the response of the Philippines Government and its development partners will be discussed along with ​ how these insights can be used to improve MHM programming in schools in development and emergency situations.
Here are web links to the two presentations. A wide range of MHM resources can be accessed through this pre-selected search of the ​UNESCO HIV & Health Clearing House Resource Library

For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse,the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and this extensive ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox


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Wednesday,
19 April 2017
Malaria in schools - A World Malaria Day special
  • ​Stefan Witek-McManus, London Applied & Spatial Epidemiology Research Group
  • Amina Fakir-Knipiler and Christelle Maitre-Anquetil, SANOFI. 
​Stefan Witek-McManus, from the London Applied & Spatial Epidemiology Research (LASER) Group​ based at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, will be highlighting the results of study into the impact of Learner Treatment Kit (LTK) in schools in Malawi. This innovative study looking at the effectiveness of training teachers to use LTKs - simple first-aid kits containing malaria rapid diagnostic tests and artemisinin-based combination therapy,  to manage un​complicated malaria and other basic health problems experienced by primary school children. 

Amina Fakir-Knipiler and Christelle Maitre-Anquetil from SANOFI, a global healthcare  company, will be introducing the School Children against Malaria programme. This initiative engaged primary schoolchildren as change agents to lead to individual behavior change and engage the community in the fight against malaria. They will also be presenting the award-winning MOSKI KIT; a comprehensive range of tools specifically designed to conduct didactic, interactive and fun malaria learning sessions with kids within the classroom.
Here is the web link to the webinar recording

These readings and resources are suggested:
For more resources and research on LRC/SH&N programs, go to the UNESCO HIV/Health Clearinghouse,the PCD Documents and Resources Collection and this extensive ISHN Bibliography/Toolbox


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29 March 2017
WASH in schools: Operation and Maintenance
  • Bella Monse, GIZ
  • Mohini Venkatesh, Save the Children
Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costing and financing are critical issues to ensuring that water, sanitation and handwashing facilities are well-managed as part of a quality learning environment in schools. In this webinar GIZ will explore through a Costing Model the recurrent costs that schools must include in their budgets for using and maintaining their WASH facilities. This will be followed by a presentation from Save the Children on the good practices and areas for improvement in financing school WASH O&M costs, based on findings from 10 country case-studies, which were conducted by UNICEF and Save the Children
To access the webinar on the day of the session, this Participants Link will be active about 15 minutes before the start of webinar.

This webinar examines system and organizational capacity issues. If participants are interested in examining other aspects of capacity and capacity-building, they may wish to access this wiki-based summary:Participants in this webinar may also be interested in commenting on these draft summaries on WASH and hand-washing programs in schools, one of several "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries.


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Wednesday,
15 March 2017
Strengthening Education through school feeding in Guatemala​
  • Fidel Arevalo and Roberto Cabrera, Save the Children Guatemala
To mark this year's International School Meals Day the FRESH webinar will be focusing on the impact that the McGovern–Dole International Food for Education Projects is having on the education, child development and food security of low-income, food-deficit communities of Guatemala.Through the USDA-funded Investment for Educational Development in Highlands (IDEA Project), Save the Children Guatemala is improving reading skills, health and nutrition practices in communities and complementing the “School Feeding Program” of the Ministry Of Education of Guatemala, promoting local recipes and the use of local foods.​
Here is the web link to the webinar recording.

These readings are suggested: Comments and edits are invited on these two summaries (Glossary Terms) related to school feeding programs: These two summaries are part of a growing list of "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries. Also, scroll down through this extensive Bibliography/Toolbox on Low Resource Countries to find the latest research reviews, landmark studies, reports and resources on school nutrition programs in low resource countries.
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15 February 2017
School-Related Gender-Based Violence:New Global Guidance for Prevention and Response
  • Jenelle Babb, UNESCO
  • Julie Hanson Swanson, USAID
  • Hassan Muluusi, Raising Voices, Uganda

This webinar will explore tools and approaches for preventing, measuring, monitoring and responding to school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), based on evidence and country experiences. SRGBV affects millions of children and young people, cutting across cultures, economies, peoples and practices. It constitutes a major barrier to children’s ability to learn and develop, and is correlated with lower academic achievement. Ending school-related gender-based violence is a priority for countries wishing to achieve ambitious global goals on inclusive and quality education for all, good health and well-being and gender equality. Published in December 2016, the Global Guidance on Addressing School-Related Gender-Based Violence aims to provide a comprehensive resource for addressing SRGBV for policymakers and practitioners. This global guidance was co-published by UNESCO and UN-Women and was developed in close collaboration with the Global Partners Working Group to End SRGBV.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar

These readings are suggested:
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15 November 2016
Substance Abuse Prevention in Schools
  • Hanna Heikkila, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
  • Yong-feng Liu, UNESCO
The webinar will discuss the role of education sector in contributing to the prevention of drug use and other risky behaviours, and introduce the types of school based approaches found effective for preventing later substance use. Hanna and Yong-feng will highlight the important role schools can have in preventing substance use and ensuring children and youth are able to grow up healthy and safely.The webinar will coincide with the launch of 'Good Policy and Practice in Health Education Booklet 10 - Education sector responses to the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs', a joint publication developed by UNESCO in partnership with UNODC and WHO.

Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

These readings are suggested Comments and edits are invited on these draft summaries (Glossary Terms) on substance abuse prevention programs in schools.. We also suggest that readers review the extensive list of resources collected by an earlier ISHN International Discussion Group on Substance Abuse Prevention. This list has been updated for this webinar by adding reviews that are focused on substance abuse prevention in low resource countries.
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17 October 2016
Global Handwashing Day: Fit for Schools - A model to promote hand washing
  • Nicole Siegmund, Principal Advisor of the Regional Fit for School Program​, ​GIZ
Basic WASH infrastructures in schools are prerequisites for positive hygiene behaviour and habit formation and address key determinants of health. The Fit for Schools Programme supports Ministries of Education across Southeast Asia to transform schools into healthy learning environments and to institutionalize simple and cost effective interventions that address some of the most prevalent diseases among school children. Nicole will discuss how the Fit for Schools Programme builds on existing systems and resources to enable the education sector within he region to implement and manage sustainable school health programmes. She'll be drawing on examples of good practice from countries such as Lao PDR to illustrate how the approach can be scaled up at a district level through effective government support.

Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

The following readings are suggested for this webinar: Comments and edits are invited on these draft summaries on WASH and hand-washing programs in schools, one of several "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries.
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15 September 2016
The Impact of School Feeding: Findings from Ghana
  • Dr Elisabetta Aurino​, Partnership for Child Development, Imperial College London
The Ghana School Feeding Programme is a popular Government-run school feeding programme which provides a free hot school meal to over 1.7 million children every school day. The GSFP employs a Home Grown School Feeding model in which it procures its food from local smallholder farmers. This provides a win-win for children who benefit from nutritious​ and fresh meals and local agricultural communities who enjoy easy access to astable market for their produce. For the past 3 years the Partnership for Child Development have been running a large scale impact evaluation to assessthe impact of the GSFP on the health and educational outcomes of children and the economic health of the communities who supply the GSFP. Dr Aurino will be sharing the initial findings of this evaluation during the webinar.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

The following readings were suggested for this webinar on school feeding: Comments and edits are invited on this draft summary of school feeding programs in schools, one of several "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries.
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15 August 2016
Mapping this wormy world
  • Dr Rachel Pullan, Global Atlas for Helminth Infections, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Following the 2012 London Declaration to eliminate NTDs by 2020 over $18 billion ​worth of donations have been made by both private and public sector organisations. With this enormous investment the need to know how best to target and direct mass treatment programmes is vital.​ In this webinar Rachel will discuss the importance of mapping worm prevalence as a means to design and target effective school based deworming programmes.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

The following readings are suggested for this webinar om mapping: Comments and edits are invited on this draft summary of deworming programs in schools, one of several "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries. As well, over 25 recent research reviews, articles and resources on deworming have been added to the extensive LRC/SH&N Bibliography/Toolbox:
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15 July 2016
Better together? Integrating school health programmes - Results from Ethiopia
  • Dr Laura Appleby, Partnership for Child Development, Imperial College London
Integrating and coordinating activities in school health has significant implications for efficiencies in terms of costs and time. Laura's webinar will present initial research findings from the Enhanced School Health Initiative, an innovative collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia to assess the effectiveness of integrating multiple school health and nutrition programmes in Southern Ethiopia. The webinar will also look at the challenges and opportunities in integrating SHN​ programs.
Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

The following readings are suggested for this webinar:
Comments and edits are invited on these draft summaries on WASH and hand-washing programs in schools, one of several "glossary terms" being developed for this series and discussion of SH&N programs in low resource countries.

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16 June, 2016
School Health & Nutrition Programs in Low resource Countries: What We Know and What We Need to Know through Research
  • Dr Masamine Jimba, Professor, Community & Global Health, University of Tokyo
This first webinar in a series on School Health & Nutrition (SHN) programs in low resource countries (LRC's) will provide an overview of the current research and major questions that need to be addressed. But the session will be focused on improving policy, programs and practice. Dr Jimba, a renowned expert in the field, believes that "Research for the sake of research makes little sense. Policies that exist just on paper do not help the lives of people. Repetition of practices based only on personal experience yield little impact. In the field of global health, the importance lies in the way in which research, policy and practice can be linked.". To find out more about his research download his paper on ‘School health research in low income countries in East Asia and the Pacific’. Following Dr Jimba's presentation and questions, participants will have an opportunity to provide feedback on the draft list of topics and knowledge development agenda being developed on SHN/LRC as well as review an extensive Bibliography/Toolbox of related research, reports and resources. .
Here is the link to the recorded webinar.

We suggest these readings (All comments on and edits of these Wikipedia style summaries are welcome):