A joint initiative between Education, Social Services and the Health Authority is pioneering new ways of working together to drive up standards of health amongst children and staff.

Eric Wood, County Education Officer, explains:

"The government has set targets to improve the health of the population. One of the crucial elements vital to the success of such a campaign is educating people to accept more healthier lifestyles. A natural starting point is the education of school children. There is much evidence of good health practice already existing in our schools but we want to encourage this throughout all our schools.

"The scheme will aim to cover the holistic health of all aspects of the school including all those people who make up the community of the school. It is just as important that our teachers are working in a healthy environment as it is for our children.

"A new Investors in Health Award for schools is to be created with schools all over the country competing for Investors in Health status. Included as part of this initiative in future are foci on healthy teachers, the development of safer travel to school and a Cooks Academy in schools. Our schools have welcomed this initiative that will seek to be the best we can be."

Trish Haines, Director of Social Services, added

"The Government’s ‘Our Healthier Nation’ green paper sets out the aims of improving the health of everyone by increasing the length of people’s lives and, most importantly, the number of years people spend free from illness. It also seeks to improve the health of the worst off in society and narrow the health gap.

"This long term goal for quality of life can only be a good thing. Social Services welcomes this initiative and will be involved in this process of developing a preventative action strategy to promote healthier lifestyles."