Health & Wellbeing in Integrated Learning Communities

These good guys did, well at very least played a major part in it! This is the team from the Scottish Health Promoting Schools Unit, who today were truly and heartily thanked for all their work since the unit was born in 2003. L to R, Mary Bellizzi, NDO Eating for Health, Jo Kopela, NDO Mental Health & Wellbeing, Benny Lawrie, NDO Physical Activity, Wendy Halliday, Director and Rosemary Arnott, Administrator to the Unit.

The national network meeting was organised to celebrate the work of the unit and others as they now move into the new Health and Wellbeing team at Learning and Teaching Scotland. Their largely unrecognised work has been to act as ‘facilitators’, agents of change and leaders, bringing different groups and networks together to maximise each others resources to ensure health and wellbeing is embedded as all our core business. The day was a great blend of national updates from Wendy Halliday and Bill Boyd Programme Manager LTS, followed by presentations from South Lanarkshire, Argyll & Bute and Dumfries & Galloway, whose schemes have taken different approaches to mainstreaming Health and Wellbeing, all very credible and innovative approaches.

The national updates pretty much focused on the guidance for the new School Act and the forthcoming Health and Wellbeing outcomes for CfE all to be published in May 2008. So far, my understanding, is they will be grouped as follows:

• A covering paper regarding PSE moving into cross-curricular approaches
• Mental, Emotional and Social wellbeing
• Physical Activity, Physical Education and Sport
• Pathways
• Food and Health
• Substance Misuse
• Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting

All very exciting developments. I raised the views earlier expressed in my posts here regarding the Literacy outcomes and the need to incorporate ‘Internet Safety’ in any Health and Wellbeing guidance and outcomes and it was confirmed that this would be included in a Communications cross-cutting theme.

The day was concluded by a brilliant (noisy!) performance from the Cleveland Taiko Drummers, which prompted complaints from the Hilton hotel, but, the mood was, so what?!! It was a rivetting performance from a very talented group of young people.  A further very special thank you followed by presentations and a speech from the network. I for one, am so grateful for the support of the unit and I know my national colleagues are too, they really have gone a long way to put health at the heart of learning.

You keep saying you’ve got something for me…Well, to be honest I have!! I came across this stonker of a website, it’s pure genius and am only too delighted to highlight it here.

It’s the kind of resource I could see any leader finding invaluable Walk Highlands pages offer a comprehensive guide to walking routes in each area of Highland, walks included range from family rambles to tough cross-country hikes and scrambling mountain ascents. Each walk is graded with little boot and bog factor icons (4 meaning you have to be as tough as old boots to do it), there’s also a great discussion board. I think it could also be used as a classroom tool, with it’s links to Google Earth etc to study surroundings.

Walk Highlands provides free waypoints to download to your GPS, both in Quo format, and as GPX files.  I recall hiking to my first munro Sgor Goaith a few years ago, this great website provided good quality photographs of all the beautiful scenes I must have missed on my way down due to the bad visibility - so it’s great to use retrospectively too!

The benefits of being outdoors, fresh air, head space, physical exertion and a sense of acheivement or belonging to something bigger, are important contributory factors for maintaining and promoting positive mental health. We’re now seeing walking and physical activity schemes emerge that GPs can prescribe or refer patients to! Now that’s far better, in my view, than any anti-depressant type medication.

Of course, I would always recommend implicitly to anyone going out to be safe on the hills. The  Mountaineering Council of Scotland provides specific guidance that must always be observed.