The Whole Child: The Need for All Systems & Agencies to Address the Overall Development and Education of Young People
As systems and agencies focus their resources on the urgent or important aspects of their mandates, it is inevitable that they will focus on specific issues and programs. In education, it will tend to be a focus on literacy & numeracy. In health, it will be on the urgent health problems of the day. Environment ministries may focus on specific hazards or effects of the climate crisis. Social protection agencies may worry most about child abuse, or exploitation of sexual abuse. Such prioritization is a good thing as long as it does not ignore or detract from the need for all sectors to simultaneously address the needs of the child child. Focused programs must be positioned within comprehensive approaches and contribute to the development and maintenance of such comprehensive approaches.
This holistic, whole child approach is often articulated in varying terms in different sectors. For example, in health promotion, the term “salutogenesis” is used to shift the focus to the origins of health rather than on various diseases. A “holistic approach to social work” considers all major facets of a client’s life to better determine underlying issues that may cause medical problems, emotional distress or negative changes in behavior. In law enforcement, “positive youth development” can be the central tenet to crime prevention within a community policing approach.
In 2017, FRESH Partners ASCD and Education International issued a joint statement responding to the publication of Goal #4 (Education) of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. That statement included this commitment to promoting a whole child approach:
"Education advocates have a responsibility to promote policies that integrate schools, communities,and nations into a system that supports development of the whole child,ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged."
The members of the FRESH Coordinating Committee subsequently endorsed that statement and have included the concept of "whole child" in our thinking and promoting of educational success, health and development. Indeed, the endorsement of a whole child approach by FRESH Partners led to a broadened focus in the discussions and joint activities of the FRESH Partners. We included educational access and success as a primary shared concern and paid more attention to several other multi-component approaches in addition to the school health, child friendly and school health & nutrition frameworks which were prevalent in 2000 when the FRESH framework and partnership was established
FRESH Partners also emphasized that each sector, ministry and agency needs to consider how its specific programs and initiatives respond not only to their identified urgent problem, but also how it contributes to the development and support of the whole child. To that end, this summary statement has been developed which elaborates on the intersectoral cooperation needed. The statement also broadens the "tenets" of the whole child approach beyond the list originally developed by ASCD and other organizations.
There is a growing body of support for the whole child approach but it is not a new idea. A 2010 book on effective collaboration for educating the whole child included this quote in its discussion of what it means to educate the whole child:
"To the doctor, the child is a typhoid patient; to the playground supervisor, a first baseman; to the teacher,a learner of arithmetic. At times, he maybe different things to each of these specialists,but too rarely is he a whole child to any of them.--From the 1930 report of the White House Conference on Children and Youth"
ASCD has promoted and published extensively on whole child education, including self-assessment tools, guides and a global network of schools. Another FRESH Partner, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) has positioned a whole child approach as being critical to social & emotional learning, child development and teaching practice. The Learning Policy Institute has underlined the importance of a supportive social climate in the school.
In order that students be engaged, challenged and supported in their learning, be physically and emotionally safe at school, be encouraged and supported to practice healthy, safe behaviours in sustainable programs and practices, the education system must count on the support and involvement of several other sectors and systems. The various aspects of child/adolescent development that are addressed in schools will need the partner ministries and agencies as noted below:
References & Resources
As systems and agencies focus their resources on the urgent or important aspects of their mandates, it is inevitable that they will focus on specific issues and programs. In education, it will tend to be a focus on literacy & numeracy. In health, it will be on the urgent health problems of the day. Environment ministries may focus on specific hazards or effects of the climate crisis. Social protection agencies may worry most about child abuse, or exploitation of sexual abuse. Such prioritization is a good thing as long as it does not ignore or detract from the need for all sectors to simultaneously address the needs of the child child. Focused programs must be positioned within comprehensive approaches and contribute to the development and maintenance of such comprehensive approaches.
This holistic, whole child approach is often articulated in varying terms in different sectors. For example, in health promotion, the term “salutogenesis” is used to shift the focus to the origins of health rather than on various diseases. A “holistic approach to social work” considers all major facets of a client’s life to better determine underlying issues that may cause medical problems, emotional distress or negative changes in behavior. In law enforcement, “positive youth development” can be the central tenet to crime prevention within a community policing approach.
In 2017, FRESH Partners ASCD and Education International issued a joint statement responding to the publication of Goal #4 (Education) of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. That statement included this commitment to promoting a whole child approach:
"Education advocates have a responsibility to promote policies that integrate schools, communities,and nations into a system that supports development of the whole child,ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged."
The members of the FRESH Coordinating Committee subsequently endorsed that statement and have included the concept of "whole child" in our thinking and promoting of educational success, health and development. Indeed, the endorsement of a whole child approach by FRESH Partners led to a broadened focus in the discussions and joint activities of the FRESH Partners. We included educational access and success as a primary shared concern and paid more attention to several other multi-component approaches in addition to the school health, child friendly and school health & nutrition frameworks which were prevalent in 2000 when the FRESH framework and partnership was established
FRESH Partners also emphasized that each sector, ministry and agency needs to consider how its specific programs and initiatives respond not only to their identified urgent problem, but also how it contributes to the development and support of the whole child. To that end, this summary statement has been developed which elaborates on the intersectoral cooperation needed. The statement also broadens the "tenets" of the whole child approach beyond the list originally developed by ASCD and other organizations.
There is a growing body of support for the whole child approach but it is not a new idea. A 2010 book on effective collaboration for educating the whole child included this quote in its discussion of what it means to educate the whole child:
"To the doctor, the child is a typhoid patient; to the playground supervisor, a first baseman; to the teacher,a learner of arithmetic. At times, he maybe different things to each of these specialists,but too rarely is he a whole child to any of them.--From the 1930 report of the White House Conference on Children and Youth"
ASCD has promoted and published extensively on whole child education, including self-assessment tools, guides and a global network of schools. Another FRESH Partner, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) has positioned a whole child approach as being critical to social & emotional learning, child development and teaching practice. The Learning Policy Institute has underlined the importance of a supportive social climate in the school.
In order that students be engaged, challenged and supported in their learning, be physically and emotionally safe at school, be encouraged and supported to practice healthy, safe behaviours in sustainable programs and practices, the education system must count on the support and involvement of several other sectors and systems. The various aspects of child/adolescent development that are addressed in schools will need the partner ministries and agencies as noted below:
- ensuring equitable educational access & support to overcome barriers to schooling (health, social protection)
- providing a broad range of courses and subjects to study, offering a variety of educational pathways to post-secondary education & training, providing remedial supports, vocational planning & academic guidance, encouraging students to engage with the future, develop school and life planning & goals and instilling values supporting hard, honest work and and a balanced life (post-secondary education & training, youth employment)
- providing food and other necessities to hungry or abused/neglected students (social protection, agriculture, health)
- ensuring the safety of children from bullying, violence, crime (law enforcement and justice)
- preventing accidents and exposure to various hazards and risks (law enforcement,municipalities, environment)
- providing for the security of children and youth from conflict, disasters, earthquakes, exploitation & trafficking (civil protection, public safety)
- promoting the physical and mental health of children and youth (health, social services, child protection)
- providing clean water, proper sanitation, hygiene (municipalities, public health)
- requiring or delivering vaccinations, immunizations and other protections from infectious diseases, epidemics (public health, health care)
- providing/promoting clean air, protection from environmental hazards, environmental citizenship, mitigation of climate change effects (e.g. pollution, sun safety, asthma) (environment, health, municipalities)
- promoting personal development, social, emotional, honesty/character, moral/spiritual and/or religious development, creativity, critical thinking, decision-making (citizenship, culture)
- promoting social development: responsibility for others, their community, global awareness, human rights, respect for the law, peace, order, good government (citizenship, culture)
References & Resources
- Allensworth DD, Lewallen TC, Stevenson B, Katz S. (2011) Addressing the needs of the whole child: what public health can do to answer the educa-tion sector’s call for a stronger partnership. Prev Chronic Dis. 2011;8(2):1-6.
- ASCD, EI (2017) The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Pursuit of Quality Education for All: A Statement of Support from Education International and ASCD, Alexandria, VA, ASCD
- ASCD (2021) The Learning Compact Renewed: Whole Child for the Whole World, Alexandria, VA , ASCD
- Carol A. Kochhar-Bryant, Angela Heishman (2010) Effective Collaboration for Educating the Whole Child, Sage Publishing,
- Carol A. Kochhar-Bryant (2010) What Doe s It Mean to Educate the Whole Child? in Carol A. Kochhar-Bryant, Angela Heishman eds (2010) Effective Collaboration for Educating the Whole Child, Sage Publishing
- ASCD (nd) The ASCD Whole Child Approach, these web pages include several resources and a global network of schools
- American Institutes for Research (2014) Teaching the Whole Child: Instructional Practices That Support Social-Emotional Learning in Three Teacher Evaluation Frameworks,Washington, DC
- Linda Darling-Hammond and Channa M. Cook-Harvey (2018) Educating the Whole Child:Improving School Climate to Support Student Success, Learning Policy Institute, Washington, DC, Author
- Mittelmark M.B., Bauer G.F. (2017) The Meanings of Salutogenesis. In: Mittelmark M. et al. (eds) The Handbook of Salutogenesis. Springer, Cham. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04600-6_2
- Mendel, R (2003) Youth, Crime and Community Development: A Guide for Collaborative Action, Columbia, MD, Enterprise Foundation
- Campbellsville University (2019) A Holistic View of Social Work, Author, Campbellsville, KY