Help Your School Take Action - Making Your School a Healthier Place

Involving Students

• Benefits of Student Involvement
• How to Involve Your Students
• Working With Youth Resources

Benefits of Student Involvement

By inviting students to become involved in their school, you'll help them:

• Build their self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Develop skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.
• Connect with their school community by promoting positive relationships with staff, younger students and peers.
• Contribute to the operation of the school (lunchtime monitoring of younger students, bus buddies, etc.).

How to Involve Students

Involve your students in your healthy eating and physical activity initiatives by:

• Including them on your School Council or Health Committee.
• Asking them to help organize events such as active fundraisers, play-days, special food days or intramural programs.
• Training them to become playground leaders (i.e., P.A.L.S.).
• Encouraging them to be lunch monitors, reading buddies or bus buddies for younger children.
• Involving them in the sale of healthy snacks or helping with a milk or lunch program.
• Training them to lead fitness breaks during the school day or at recess.
• Asking them to operate the time clock at sports tournaments, or organize a sign out system of physical activity equipment for recess play.

Working with Youth (Resources)

• The Search Institute's Developmental Assets
  Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets ® are concrete, common sense, positive experiences and qualities essential to raising successful young people. These assets have the power during critical adolescent years to influence choices young people make and help them become caring, responsible adults.
  
  
• The Virtues Project Educator's Guide
  Designed primarily for counsellors, teachers, caregivers and youth leaders, this is a guide to creating cultures of caring and integrity in schools, day care centres, and youth programs.