Among these services are the provision of appropriate first aid treatment to emergencies in school and the screening of school-age children for commonly preventable conditions. Health promotion and health education are also fundamental components of these services.
The ideal set-up of having a full time health personnel, a school nurse or school health aide in each school, solely dedicated to health care promotion and services is an advocacy agendum that both educational and health professionals should continue to push. However, acknowledging the current reality in public schools and in the school system, an interim measure of tapping teachers as health workers is a reasonable alternative. Specifically, capability building and capacity enhancement of science teachers can be undertaken. This is a logical choice because health is, in fact, integrated into science in the Revised Basic Educational Curriculum (R-BEC) of DepEd for the third to the sixth grades. The practice of teachers acting as health workers is an established alternative in many countries that share a common problem with the Philippines where schools lack the resource to maintain a fully dedicated health care staff.
Context
The proposed program pursues the training of teachers as health workers in the broader context of school health, defined here to include the four pillars elucidated in UNESCO’s FRESH Initiative, Focusing Resources on Effective School Health. These are:
- Health-related School Policies
- Provision of Safe Water and Sanitation as a first step in promoting a Healthy School Environment
- Skills-based Health Education
- School-based Health and Nutrition Services
The training of teachers as school-based health workers builds the fourth pillar of the FRESH Initiative, the setting up of school-based health and nutrition services. A secondary goal of training teachers as health workers is the formation of a group within the school that can champion the cause of school health. The creation of this cause-oriented group within the school is necessary to create the momentum to build on the first three pillars of the initiative.
The efforts to build on the first three pillars of the FRESH Initiative require the participation of all stakeholders in the school. As such, activities will include strategies that promote partnership between teachers and the community through the Parent-Teacher-Community Associations. Likewise, the activities call for the reasonable participation of students. The school-age child, in this framework, is regarded not just as the object of interventions. The school-age child is, instead, viewed as an active stakeholder whose participation will help shape the delivery of the interventions
The important role of the school principal and other school administrators cannot be overemphasized. As the chief executive in the school, the principal has to be aware of the inseparable link between health and education. The need for this understanding and the need for this disposition is a prerequisite for the implementation of innovations that will bring about the promotion of health related school policies; the building of a healthy school environment; and the development of skill-based health education. This role extends to other structures that relate to the school like the Local School Board and the Local Health Board.
Beginning with the teacher-school-based-health worker, the program undertakes a directed effort to provide the necessary capability to the health and education leaders within the school to be effective in discharging their roles as champions and advocates for a child-friendly (UNICEF) and health-promoting school (WHO).
Brief Description of the Training / Capacity Enhancement Workshops
The training program is divided into modules and is participatory and interactive in approach. The necessary knowledge and skills that teachers need to develop as school-based health workers is provided through experiential learning.
The first module provides an orientation to the selected teachers on the additional role that they will be carrying out in the school. It also includes a situational analysis of the state of education and health in the whole country and more specifically in their own locality. The next two modules prepare the teacher-health worker in their role as provider of basic health care services in the school. Topics to be discussed in these modules include basic first aid; common morbidities in school age children; referral system in both the local educational and health system; and, the mapping of currently available resources in the school and community.
Module four touches on the promotion of wellness and in the prevention of common diseases. In addition to the knowledge-based sessions, these sessions also includes skills-based training on effective communication, social marketing and mobilization skills.
Module five is a three-session module that includes the school principals and representatives of the Parent-Teacher-Community Association (PTCA). The FRESH framework is the focal point for discussion and participatory planning. Sessions also include topics on resource mobilization, networking and linkaging.
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