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Promoting healthy lifestyle choices

Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) is continuing to build on the foundation of promoting health and wellness across their division.
Northern Lights Public Schools is continuing to grow their health and wellness programming for students.
Northern Lights Public Schools is continuing to grow their health and wellness programming for students.

Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) is continuing to build on the foundation of promoting health and wellness across their division.

Although they have their sights set on growing wellness programming and building off their current offerings for mental and physical health initiatives, NLPS wants to do more.

“Health and wellness in our division can range anywhere from student advocacy counsellors or mental health support in our schools to building playgrounds, family Friday calendars and our partnerships with the Alberta Health authority,” explained Terry Moghrabi, associate superintendent for human resources during the board of trustees meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 8.

So far, NLPS has implemented numerous programs and initiatives that focus on improving and promoting healthy lifestyle choices for not only their students, but also their staff.

Moghrabi wants to see that commitment grow, and form a health and wellness policy for schools throughout NLPS.

“This is something we started to work on last year, and we will continue on that more this year,” he said.

The policy would help ensure that “everyone understands that healthy students do learn better.”

“We are trying to embed health and wellness culture and curriculum. We are trying to connect information through experts and all of our resources, communication that health and wellness is everyone's responsibility, not just that of the students and staff, but the entire organization,” Moghrabi explained.

NLPS has put active living, healthy eating, and mental wellbeing in the spotlight by integrating programs such as Apple Schools and Ever Active Schools. These programs are brought-on by the schools themselves, and have made it into the classrooms of students at Cold Lake Elementary, Cold Lake Middle School, Art Smith Aviation Academy, Glendon School, H.E. Bourgoin, and North Star Elementary School, among others.

“Apple Schools is a three-year program, and their intent is to fade away, to build capacity in schools so we can provide these types of programs at less and less of a cost each year. It's working well, but at the same time, we will eventually lose those staff members,” noted Moghrabi.

Apple Schools employs five half-time staff members at NLPS schools who encourage and work with students on healthy eating habits.

Ever Active Schools plays a similar role in terms of promoting healthy living, except on the physical literacy side.

“This is very specific to physical literacy and understanding the concepts behind it,” continued Moghrabi.

According to Moghrabi, Apple Schools released the results of a survey conducted on Grade 5 students across the province. Their results surprised the board.

The survey found that 29 per cent of Grade 5 students in Alberta are overweight, while eight per cent are obese.

This wasn't the only statistic Mogrhabi shared. He also explained they have learned for every dollar they spend on wellness saves $3.25 in healthcare costs, and $2.73 in absenteeism.

“That's a driver for us as far as our goals,” he expressed.

Annually, the NLPS board of trustees offers about $60,000 in grant funding for wellness initiatives in their schools.

Last year, $30,000 was used on wellness sessions with staff, $28,000 was allocated to student resources, particularly those “committed to impacting anxiety levels and depression.”

“We have already approved $30,000 of the wellness grant for this year. In that, we want to carry the work forward that we started last year in respect to addressing stakeholders within each school, bringing champions back together again, and trying to establish a wellness policy for our division,” Moghrabi noted. “We are looking at not just capturing the voices of our staff, but we also want to get student voices involved as well.”

The school division is also working with occupational therapists, speech therapists, and mental health therapists through the Regional Collaborative Service Delivery System. This program connects NLPS with Alberta Health Services, helping them tap into necessary services for their students.

Board chair Arlene Hrynyk was excited about the direction the school division was heading.

“I'm really pleased to see the elevation and enhancement around wellness as per our strategic plan as a division,” she said. “If we go back a number of years ago from where we were then to where we are now, there is just so much growth.”

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