Schools play a particularly critical role by establishing a safe and supportive environment with policies and practices that support healthy behaviors. Schools also provide opportunities for students to learn about and practice healthy eating and physical activity behaviors.

The WSCC model emphasizes the relationship between educational attainment and health by putting the child at the center of a system designed to support both. The WSCC also combines the “Whole Child” framework from ASCD with the Coordinated School Health (CSH) approach.

The basis for the approach is to partner with schools to improve outcomes because establishing healthy behaviors during childhood is easier and more effective than trying to change unhealthy behaviors during adulthood.

The WSCC model improves alignment, integration, and collaboration between education and health to improve each child’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development. It incorporates the components of a coordinated school health program around the tenets of a whole child approach to education and provides a framework to address the symbiotic relationship between learning and health.