Placing students at the center: the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model.

Background: Students are the heart of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. Students are the recipients of programs and services to ensure that they are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged and also serve as partners in the implementation and dissemination of the WSCC model.

Methods: A review of the number of students nationwide enjoying the 5 Whole Child tenets reveals severe deficiencies while a review of student-centered approaches, including student engagement and student voice, appears to be one way to remedy these deficiencies.

What have we learned from collaborative partnerships to concomitantly improve both education and health?

Background: Collaborative partnerships are an essential means to concomitantly improve both education outcomes and health outcomes among K-12 students.

Methods: We describe examples of contemporaneous, interactive, and evolving partnerships that have been implemented, respectively, by a national governmental health organization, national nongovernmental education and health organizations, a state governmental education organization, and a local nongovernmental health organization that serves partner schools.

Results: Each of these partnerships strategically built operational infrastructures that enabled partners to efficiently combine their resources to improve student education and health.

Addressing the social determinants of health of children and youth: a role for SOPHE members.

The determinants of youth health disparities include poverty, unequal access to health care, poor environmental conditions, and educational inequities. Poor and minority children have more health problems and less access to health care than their higher socioeconomic status cohorts. Having more health problems leads to more absenteeism in school, which, in turn, can affect achievement.