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The EU-Project behind​

What are the objective of SHE4AHA?

In January 2021, the European Commission launched a green paper on ageing, called “Fostering solidarity and responsibility between generations”. The purpose of this green paper is to establish a European policy debate on how to anticipate and find common solutions and new approaches, responding to the challenges that Europe faces in relation to the demographic change, and to accomplish the strategic goal of increasing the number of healthy living years within the European population.
The Green paper on ageing recognizes that what we learn and experience in early childhood affects us for the rest of our lives. Living a “healthy childhood” in general terms shapes our future prospect, health situation and well-being. We also know from research, that being obese as a child very often leads to obesity in adult life, and the green paper therefore advocates for interventions and activities, which can help to “laying the right foundation” early in life, preventing, limiting and postponing some of the challenges linked to ageing, and help the member states to fulfil the objective of adding more healthy life years to the life expectancy within the European population.
The green paper on ageing puts forward the following 3 questions:
    • How can healthy and active ageing policies be promoted from an early age and throughout the life span for everyone?
    • How can children and young people be better equipped for the prospect of a longer life expectancy?
    • What kind of support can the EU provide to the Member States?
The partnership behind SHE4AHA represents the Schools for Health in Europe Network who has developed a manual, an assessment guide and a set of standards and indicators (all together called the SHE material) that policy makers, school management and teachers can use to make their school community “a health promoting school”.
The objective of SHE4AHA is to show that the Health Promoting School (HPS) framework can be used as a validated and evidence-based contribution to implement the Commissions’ green paper on ageing that calls for solutions to support healthy and active ageing from an early age.
The SHE4AHA project takes its starting point in the Health Promoting School (HPS) approach which is promoted Europe wide by the Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE). HPSis an evidence-based approach that assist schools to become an inclusive setting for living, learning, and playing.
The SHE4AHA project involves 15 pilot schools around Europe. These schools receive training and coaching, assisting the schools to work with the HPS approach and become more active players in promoting children and young people’s health.
Along the project, this website will be developed continuously to contain inspiration material, such as training material, good practice stories and recommendations for other schools around Europe to learn and become motivated to work towards becoming a Health Promoting School.

What will SHE4AHA deliver?

The lead partner of the SHE4AHA project is Schools for Health in European Network Foundation (SHE) which has as its overall objective, to make every school in Europe a health promoting school. To do so, SHE collaborates with the WHO as well as with national and regional SHE coordinators in 36 European countries. Together with the SHE Research Group and the SHE coordinators, material has been develop, which among others consist of school manual, an assessment guide and a set of standards and indicators (all together called the SHE material) that policy makers, school management and teachers can use to make their school community “a health promoting school”.

In SHE4AHA , all this material will be transformed into an easily accessible “pixie” version, as we know school managers and teachers are busy people. The pixie version will be supported with teaching material for three concrete and practical oriented training days.

The SHE4AHA partners will work together with at least 15 pilot schools in the participating countries being; Denmark, Iceland, France, Portugal and Slovenia. Based on our training in the schools, the coaching that we provide, and the activities the pilot schools will work to implement in their schools, a good practice story will be elaborated for each school.

These good practice stories will tell the story about the journey of the school from they started working together with the SHE4AHA partners until they took an evaluating “eye back” on the activities they implemented together with colleagues, pupils and probably also parents in many cases.

The objective of these good practice stories will be to inspire other schools around Europe to also start pilot projects and learning processes like the pilot schools in the SHE4AHA project.
The Good Practice Catalogue will be available in autumn 2024.

Looking into what has been going on in the entire project, and within each pilot school, the SHE4AHA partners, will make a transversal analysis of it all and elaborate a set of concrete policy and implementation recommendations.

Said in short; what seems to work and what doesn’t when schools want to work more actively and strategically to become a health promoting school; an inclusive setting for living, learning, and playing.

We will be highlighting the “dos” and don’ts” and make a concrete list of things to remember to create better opportunities for success for the induvial school.

All material will be available in the 6 languages of the project: namely English, Danish, Icelandic, French, Portuguese and Slovenian

The partners in the project

The SHE4AHA project is implemented by a European partnership which is managed by the SHE Network Foundation and the South Denmark European Office.

The SHE Network Foundation (SHE) is a European NGO situated in the Region of Southern Denmark that has as main aim to improve the health of children and young people in Europe, including reducing health inequalities, through a specific setting focus on schools. The vision of SHE is to make every school in Europe a health promoting school.

Website

The South Denmark European Office (SDEO) is a non for profit organisation with the main objective to assist stakeholders in the region of Southern Denmark to be involved in the European collaboration, and to bring knowledge from European institutions and European innovation projects and partnerships to relevant regional stakeholders.

Website

SHE and SDEO work together with SHE coordinators from 4 other countries being Iceland, France, Portugal and Slovenia to develop and implement the project.

The National Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia (NIJZ) is the leading public institut, whose main purpose is to provide research in the field of health, protect and increase the level of population health by raising its awareness, and carrying out other preventive measures.

Since 1993 NIPH has been managing the Slovenian Network of Health Promoting Schools (SNHPS) programme, which is coordinated regionally by 9 regional units. Today, SNHPS includes 436 educational institutions, which is 66% of all educational institutions.

The NIPH provides Health promoting Schools with regular periodic education and training on various topics of health and healthy lifestyle. It also guides and supports them in implementing health promotion in the school environment. Conducting regular periodic expert meetings, providing regular information on current issues in the field, on events, trainings and opportunities, and an annual overview of the activities carried out by Health promoting Schools in their environment are just the basic tasks of the Health Promoting Schools regional coordination.

All of the above are entry point for the implementation of the main deliverables, recommendations and good practices that are brought together under the SHE4AHA project umbrella. The existing structure and coordination of the SNHPS has facilitated the recruitment of pilot schools to participate in the project SHE4AHA, and the dissemination of all the resulting materials and other outputs of the project has been ensured and facilitated. All the SHE4AHA project recommendations and other products will be transferred through the network to Health Promoting Schools in Slovenia in the coming years.

Websites

Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University is providing teaching in the fields of hard sciences, technology, health, sport and teaching professions. Lyon 1 pays attention to its training and teaching methods, setting up new teaching platforms and numerous innovative educational projects, including personalized supports for staff and students with special needs. Health, Systemic, Process (Parcours, Santé, Systémique) is a vibrant research unit within Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University. It addresses life course interventions and living processes, in a transdisciplinary approach, considering health and related social determinants.

The team involved in the project focus more specifically on schools, with a view to promote pupil’s health, well-being and academic achievement, to prepare them in the best way possible to their life as future citizens. They also work at the Teacher Training College, which is specialized in teaching-oriented competency development with a particular focus on Health Education and Promotion.

Websites

Icelandic Ministry of Health, the Division of Public Health. The Ministry of Health in Iceland was established on January 1st 2019. The Ministry has the responsibility for administration and policy making of health in Iceland as prescribed by law, regulations and other directives. Among the issues that the Ministry deals with are: Health Insurances, Patient Rights, Pharmaceutical Affairs, Promotion of Information Technology in the Health Services in Iceland, Public Health, Operation of Hospitals, Health Centers and other Providers of Health Services.

Website

Minho University, the Research Center of child Studies. The University’s mission is to generate, disseminate and apply knowledge, based on freedom of thought and plurality of critical expression, promoting higher education and contributing to the construction of a model of society based on humanistic principles, which has knowledge, creativity and innovation as factors of growth, sustainable development, well-being and solidarity.

Website

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