What is it?
Health-promoting policies provide a foundation for a whole-school approach. Effective policies focus on providing students with a safe context in which to grow, learn and build resilience through supporting healthy development and competence. They aim to provide young people with caring relationships, appropriate expectations and opportunities for participation and contribution. They aim to avoid punitive responses that tend to exclude students who are struggling and showing signs of disconnection.
Health-promoting policies also mitigate or prevent key risk factors in the education system itself, the school environment, and the individual. For instance, they emphasize inclusion and engagement as protective factors against drug-related risks and harms.
Level of research support: Strong evidence of effectiveness
Why do it?
Policies that build school connectedness and foster social and emotional competence are strongly supported in research (Faggiano et al., 2005; Roche et al., 2008). Students who develop strong connections with school, and positive relationships with teachers or other school staff, show less involvement with risky behaviours. They are also less likely to develop mental health or substance use problems (Resnick et al., 1997).
School policies are often based on preventing or responding to problems. But evidence suggests that surveillance techniques (e.g., drug testing or searches) and punitive consequences (e.g., suspension and expulsion) are ineffective and may have unintended negative consequences (Caan, 2005; Goldberg et al., 2003; Roche et al., 2008; Skiba & Peterson, 2000; Taras, 2003). This is because often drug problems are not about the substances themselves but instead symptoms of other struggles, such as relational problems or stress.
Reducing drug use is more about fostering connectedness within the school community than it is about articulating rules about drug use and disciplinary measures for infractions.
Next to families, schools are the social institution with the greatest potential impact on children. They can have enormous influence on the way young people understand and experience the world. Since drug use (like love and sex) is part of the human experience, schools have a responsibility to help young people understand its place and role in society. This includes understanding potential risks and consequences.
Schools also have a responsibility to understand the complex relationship between drug use and educational outcomes. On one hand, drug use can interfere with learning (because of the neural impact of the substance used, or because of the social context of the use). On the other hand, learning problems can lead to drug use. Students who fail to do well in school are at significantly higher risk for developing harmful patterns of substance use. In particular, early school failure in primary school may be a risk factor for the later emergence of drug use problems (Loxley et al., 2004).
A growing body of evidence is showing that restorative practices are more effective than punitive measures in dealing with drug-related infractions (Chmelynski, 2005; Karp & Breslin, 2001). In health-promoting schools, the emphasis is on developing and evaluating policies in terms of their contribution to building resilience through promoting healthy development and competence. While preventing and responding to problems is important, building resilience is even more important. As Benard (2000) explains, "The major message from [research] is that it's how we do what we do that counts. In other words, context matters more than content; process more than program."
Who is it for?
Who can facilitate it?
How can we implement it?
For policies to be effective they must be developed, implemented (promoted as well as enforced), and evaluated. Each of these stages requires time, effort and resources and needs the commitment of the leadership at both school and district levels. Effective policy involves a continuous cycle.
Do your existing policies
Your new policies should reflect or include
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