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School Health and Nutrition (SHN)
Millions of school-age children are affected by serious, yet easily treatable and preventable, illnesses, which inhibit their ability to learn. Save the Children’s School Health and Nutrition (SHN) program is a cost-effective strategy to address a number of the health problems facing school-age children, through health education and health services such as deworming and micronutrient supplementation and healthy environment. Our programs are active in 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. These interventions are simple, safe and familiar, and address problems that are widespread and recognized as important within the community, thereby helping children participate in school.
Save the Children works closely with schools and their communities to ensure proper sanitation through building latrines and appropriate hand washing facilities and providing access to safe drinking water. Most importantly, through education, students learn how to adapt their daily habits to improve their health, nutrition, hygiene and prevent HIV and AIDS, gaining these important skills and behaviors for life. Whilst focusing on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and health education through schools, Save the Children’s SHN programs are nevertheless diverse and adapted to local needs - including for example vision and hearing screening, oral health promotion, malaria prevention and treatment, obesity reduction and violence prevention.
SHN interventions have been shown to improve not only children’s health and nutrition, but also their learning potential and life choices both in the short and long-term. SHN interventions particularly benefit poor and disadvantaged children, who have the most to gain both nutritionally and educationally. Also, by focusing on the special needs for girls – for example through Menstrual Health Management (MHM) – our SHN programs are helping reduce barriers to learning for girls and enhance their overall health.
It is now widely recognized that SHN programs are an important instrument in enabling children to benefit from quality education and reach their educational potential. As such, they are recognized as making a significant contribution towards countries’ efforts to achieve Education for All (EFA) and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Within Save the Children, the SHN programs work closely with the Education Programs to ensure that children in communities served by Save the Children are well educated and healthy. Similarly, School Health and Nutrition Programs are a good continuation of Early Child Development (ECD) programs. Our School Health and Nutrition Programs are recognized as a global model and are in alignment with the UN and World Bank framework for school health and nutrition called FRESH (Focusing Resources on School Health and Nutrition).
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FRESH School Health and Nutrition (SHN) Webinar: 20 Years of Experience in Integrated School Health and Nutrition Programming- February 2019
What are Save the Children's achievements in its 20 years of experience with school health and nutrition programming? What are the elements of its integrated programming in health and nutrition for school-age children? What are the priorities for Save the
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Adding a Nutrition Behavior Change Communication Component to an Early Childhood Development Intervention in Malawi
The Nutrition Embedded Evaluation Program Impact Evaluation (NEEP-IE) cluster randomized control trial (CRCT) aimed to assess the effectiveness of implementing an agriculture and nutritional intervention through preschools, known as community-based child
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FRESH Webinar: Menstrual Hygiene Management: Unique Experiences from the Philippines and Mexico- May 2019
What are the MHM interventions of the comprehensive WASH in School package, practices, and measures in the Philippines? How does the Philippines monitor MHM for quality assurance and recognize schools for their successful implementation? How does menstru
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FRESH School Health and Nutrition (SHN) Webinar: Managing Operation and Management- what does it take to reach the SDGs for WASH in schools? March 2019
Introduction to a costing tool to calculate the budget need for schools to provide the basic service level for drinking water, usable sanitation, and handwashing with soap. The tool provides school heads with an easy to manage app, which calculates the an
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FRESH School Health and Nutrition (SHN) Webinar: Re-imagining School Health- Maximizing Investment in Human Capital and Rural Economies- April 2019
The past few years have seen a sea change in how the world invests; its young people, well beyond early childhood and all the way into their transition towards adulthood. As the World Bank's Human Capital Index shows, people are an economy's main source
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WASH in Schools Three Star Approach: National Guidelines- What you need to know
The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in School (WinS) Booklets were developed by the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) with support from the members of the WinS Technical Working Group, which Save the Children Philippines is part of. These resourc
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WASH in Schools Three Start Approach: Hygiene
The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in School (WinS) Booklets were developed by the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) with support from the members of the WinS Technical Working Group, which Save the Children Philippines is part of. These resourc
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WASH in Schools Three Start Approach: Deworming
The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in School (WinS) Booklets were developed by the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) with support from the members of the WinS Technical Working Group, which Save the Children Philippines is part of. These resourc
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Save the Children Global Nutrition Factsheet 2018
The global Nutrition factsheet summarises Save the Children's nutrition approach, advocacy, programming and research work around the world for 2018. It also includes links to Save the Children recent publications School, Health and Nutrition (SHN)
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School Health and Nutrition Program Update: Issue 14- 2018
2018 marked the 20th year of SHN programming at Save the Children. In 1998, Save the Children made a commitment to SHN and piloted SHN programming using Child Sponsorship funding. It is exciting to know that those pilot programs proved so significant and
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How to Improve Health and Learning in School-Age Children
Common childhood health conditions have a consequence on children's education, and ultimately a longer-term effect on their society's prosperity and development as a whole. Schools are a great platform for health interventions, it is cheap, safe, and cost
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Improving Child Nutrition and Development through Preschools in Malawi
Some 12,000 community preschools in Malawi serve 45 percent of the county’s preschool population. Yet, because of food insecurity and communities’ difficulties in providing preschoolers with a midmorning meal, these schools may not survive. To address thi