Evaluation Of Health Promotion Programme For School Children Discussion Paper

Overview Of The Health Promotion Programme

The primary objective of the study is to identify the determinants of health in a randomized sample size of about 1000 primary school based at New Zealand (Cushman & Clelland,2012). Children have been considered as the future of the nation who would serve as the building block of a progressive nation (Langford et al.,2014). In order to maintain the idea, it is important to not only educate the children but also ensure that they lead a healthy life style. The study proceeded with designing a random questionnaire and posting it to the 1000 primary school participants so as to gain an average response about the perception of physical and mental fitness of the school children (Cushman & Clelland,2012). The rationale of the research study included to establish a supportive framework to the factors affecting the health of the school children and serving as an obstruction in the all round academic development. The questionnaire responses included factors such as minimal exercise and fitness regime and excessive intake of unhealthy and high calorie diet to be the major determinants that affect the poor health of the children (Cushman & Clelland,2012). To some extent malnutrition and the lack of knowledge about a proportionate diet also served as the factors promoting poor health in the children. From the critical analysis of the study, it was thus noted that the schools possess an extremely vague idea about the health and wellness determining factors. The major factors that were evaluated from the responses of the study comprised of an extremely generalized opinion about the maintenance of health and fitness in school children. The results pointed out the necessity to engage in national awareness schemes promoting fitness evaluation in developing school children. Evaluation Of Health Promotion Programme For School Children Discussion Paper The factors that were taken into consideration and believed to be the obstructive elements in dispensing an all round physical and mental health development promoting the spirit of learning needed a major modification. In order to include the elements of modification, it was recommended that the schools must adopt a refined professional approach and at the same time must comply with the national strategies comprehensively designed with the consideration of these elements. The need to promote education and awareness about the health determinants that play a vital role in the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being of the school going children was widely felt (Weare,2013). Additionally, the research also pinpointed to the need to include adequate refined strategies that could be used by the primary schools across New Zealand for better outcome.

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The treaty of Waitangi ensures three important aspects to be covered in favor of the indigenous tribes inhabiting the land of New Zealand. It vividly mentions the three most important considerations in terms of prevention, participation and partnership that must be evaluated critically while designing any fitness welfare strategy. The health promotion principles that were recommended to be followed by the primary schools of New Zealand to successfully enhance the goal of attaining physical and mental fitness included the framing of the policies in compliance with the treaty of Waitangi or ‘Te Tiriti O Waitangi’ (Cushman & Clelland,2012). Partnership or collaboration encompasses of the mission to work with the indigenous tribal population based at New Zealand such as the Whanau, hapu, iwi and the maori communities and design strategies that would help in securing the health benefits for the progress of these communities. Partnership requires the involvement of the Maori community at each level of health evaluation, starting from the planning, implementation, decision making to dispensing service delivery to the unfit and the disabled proportion of the indigenous population. The principle of prevention on the other hand talks about guaranteeing protection to safeguard the cultural and traditional values of the Maori community and adopt measures to bridge the gap between the medical service delivery between the indigenous and the non-indigenous proportion of population based in New Zealand. The health promotion evaluation and awareness schemes recommended based upon the research results of the study strives to develop tools so as to emancipate the Maori community. The study critically considered the sample size of primary schools of both Maori as well as Non-Maori communities and scrutinized the responses of the school administration on the health determining tools affecting the cognitive and the learning adaptability of the students. Accordingly, initiatives were taken to introduce the community based interventions to provide assistance to the schools for better health evaluation Nursing strategies.

Application Of Health Promotion Principles And Te Tiriti O Waitangi

The key strengths of this research study could be listed as the wide and diverse sample size that was considered for the interview. Additionally, the paper also suggests that the questionnaire included the responses of the schools dealing with both Indigenous as well as the Non-indigenous segment of the student population based at New Zealand. Also, it should be stated that the inclusion of the primary as well as the secondary schools provided an over view about the health determinants affecting the child hood as well as the adolescent phases of a student life. According to evidences furnished by the critical evaluation of literature studies, it has been mentioned that the development requirement of children at the initial childhood and at the adolescent phase is different to a great extent (Suchert et al.,2015). Therefore, it can be admitted that the diverse inclusion of the target audience both in terms of ethnic background as well as developmental stage makes the research study more authentic. On the contrary the weakness of the research study would be considering and validating the research only on account of the responses gathered from interviewing the administrative post holders in the schools. Since, the study is focused on the health determinants of the students the effect of the research study would have yielded better results, had it considered the opinion of the students as well, who are the central theme or rather the subject of the research study.

The key factors absorbed on thorough analysis of the research study would be the major divided opinion about the health determinants in developing children. Also, the results clearly indicated the lack of awareness and clear understanding in terms of the conceptual framework of health and well being. The interview responses pointed primarily towards the unhealthy food intake and restricted fitness motivation among the students. However the concept of health is not just restricted to physical fitness, rather it deals with the complete wellbeing of sound mental, emotional and spiritual health (WHO,2014). The schools must consider introducing programs that would help the students in improving their concentration ability as well as enhance their cognitive behavior adaptability to an impressive extent (Reiss,2013). It is crucial to note here that the students at the adolescent age face a number of issues that evokes the feeling of depression or anxiety in them and these factors are often over-looked (Fergusson et al.,2013). The adolescent phase as the major proportion of the secondary school students must be in require a lot of attention, care and counseling in order to effectively deal with elements such as peer pressure, physiological changes in the body and emerge as upright students. The primary as well as the secondary schools of New Zealand must emphasis on the introduction of awareness programs in the school to educate the students about the need to practice hygiene . An awareness program to educate the male as well as the female students about the physiological and hormonal changes that their bodies undergo during the phase of puberty is extremely important. Focusing on the schools that deal with the students belonging to the indigenous community, it is important to incorporate programs that would facilitate the female candidates to effectively practice hygiene during their menstrual cycle (Fleming et al.,2014). Evaluation Of Health Promotion Programme For School Children Discussion Paper Also, inclusion of programs to educate the students about the significance of day to day hygiene such as washing hands before meals or checking the expiry date of the canned beverage that they are about to have will help in ensuring a healthy standard of living (Dudley et al.,2015). Programs to educate students about ‘sex’ should also be included on a primary basis by the schools. This is because the students are curious and often contemplate about the basic biological process due to ignorance and that serves as a major distraction factor in the learning process (Langford et al.,2014). Hence, inclusion of awareness programs at the school level can help in quenching the curiousness thereby making the learning process an interesting one. In addition to these modifications, Schools should also incorporate spiritual programs such as meditation workshops which would help in enhancing the students to increase their focus and concentration power. Every school must include a counseling cell on a mandatory basis as on many occasions the developing students silently suffer problems which they are unable to share or the students might even be victims of bullying or in case of the indigenous students, they might be silent sufferers of discrimination (Denny et al.,2015). Hence, the inclusion of counseling cells can encourage the students to reach out the expert and seek help in case of any form of disturbance. Therefore, the entire idea of the study is to take into consideration all the elements that contribute to the overall development of the school students and not just restrict the focus to eating imbalance and imperfect fitness regime. Thus to sum up, these factors must be considered to construct an authentic health evaluation program in schools.

References:

Clark, T., Fleming, T., Bullen, P., Crengle, S., Denny, S., Dyson, B., … & Teevale, T. (2013). Health and well?being of secondary school students in N ew Z ealand: Trends between 2001, 2007 and 2012. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 49(11), 925-934.

Cushman, P., & Clelland, T. (2012). Addressing health issues in New Zealand schools. International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 50(4), 159-168.

Denny, S., Peterson, E. R., Stuart, J., Utter, J., Bullen, P., Fleming, T., … & Milfont, T. (2015). Bystander intervention, bullying, and victimization: A multilevel analysis of New Zealand high schools. Journal of school violence, 14(3), 245-272.

Dudley, D. A., Cotton, W. G., & Peralta, L. R. (2015). Teaching approaches and strategies that promote healthy eating in primary school children: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1), 28.

Fergusson, D. M., McLeod, G. F., & Horwood, L. J. (2013). Childhood sexual abuse and adult developmental outcomes: Findings from a 30-year longitudinal study in New Zealand. Child abuse & neglect, 37(9), 664-674.

Fleming, T. M., Clark, T., Denny, S., Bullen, P., Crengle, S., Peiris-John, R., … & Lucassen, M. (2014). Stability and change in the mental health of New Zealand secondary school students 2007–2012: Results from the national adolescent health surveys. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(5), 472-480.

Langford, R., Bonell, C. P., Jones, H. E., Pouliou, T., Murphy, S. M., Waters, E., … & Campbell, R. (2014). The WHO Health Promoting School framework for improving the health and well-being of students and their academic achievement. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 4(4), CD008958.

Priest, N., Paradies, Y., Trenerry, B., Truong, M., Karlsen, S., & Kelly, Y. (2013). A systematic review of studies examining the relationship between reported racism and health and wellbeing for children and young people. Social science & medicine, 95, 115-127.

Reiss, F. (2013). Socioeconomic inequalities and mental health problems in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Social science & medicine, 90, 24-31.

Suchert, V., Hanewinkel, R., & Isensee, B. (2015). Sedentary behavior and indicators of mental health in school-aged children and adolescents: A systematic review. Preventive medicine, 76, 48-57. Evaluation Of Health Promotion Programme For School Children Discussion Paper