Healthier Generation and Kaiser Permanente join for partnership

Hope to integrate health assessment for emerging school needs

As the world continues to respond to the pandemic and school systems are increasingly recognized as a center of support in communities, Alliance for a Healthier Generation (Healthier Generation) and Kaiser Permanente have launched the Thriving Schools Integrated Assessment.

The Thriving Schools Integrated Assessment helps schools evaluate strengths and gaps across a broad range of topics, including social-emotional health, food access and staff wellbeing, so that they can improve factors that impact health and learning, such as attendance, discipline and school climate.

The integrated assessment helps schools and districts:

• Identify strengths and opportunities to support students and staff

• Determine goals that align with needs, priorities and available resources

• Build skills and processes to facilitate and sustain change

• Demonstrate the educational benefit of integrating health-related strategies into district and school improvement

“The pandemic has clearly shown the interdependence of health and education, but our nation’s systems are not set up to prioritize this intersection,” Annie Reed, national director of Thriving Schools at Kaiser Permanente, said. “At Kaiser Permanente, we are working to redefine how we can support schools to prioritize health. To that end, we are proud to partner with Healthier Generation to help school systems create learning environments that also support the well-being of students and educators.”

There is a strong connection between health and education, and schools cannot successfully address students’ educational needs without also prioritizing their health. Prioritizing the well-being of educators is also essential to creating a learning environment where everyone can thrive. This includes teachers, cafeteria workers, school nurses, custodians and bus drivers.

Recognizing the different roles that districts and individual schools play in facilitating improvements, two versions of the assessment have been developed.

• District assessment questions focus on policies and procedures that would typically be determined at the district level, as well as support that a district could provide to facilitate implementation of policies and practices at the school level.

• School assessment questions focus primarily on implementation of policies and practices within the school setting.

The distinct but coordinated district- and schoollevel versions of the assessment provide teams with unique insight into their approach to supporting child health and staff well-being. Teams may access and continuously update assessment responses and action plans in the Healthier Generation Action Center.