Wellness Champions for Change

"Student Wellness Champions participate in a training to, develop a rapport, and build trust with the wellness specialist. SWCs will meet once/week during lunch. The SWC's will receive a health education/ health literacy curriculum in order to be well-versed on the importance of being active and eating healthy foods and how to communicate health information to key stakeholders to enact policy change and to fellow students to enact behavior change. These students will work with the Wellness Specialist and Wellness Champion to implement wellness policies and practices.~Target policies/practices will be presented as a menu of options. The mechanisms used to enact change are based in the tenets of health literacy anchored in nutrition and PA promotion. Components of the curriculum include raising awareness of school system's local wellness policies and improving student skills surrounding the five standards of health literacy, using examples/activities linked to the local wellness policy."

"Schools will be asked to identify a Wellness Champion (WC), someone at the school who is passionate about creating a healthy school environment. All WC's will be asked to attend a Wellness Champions for Change (WCC) training, led by a Wellness Specialist (health educator part of our study team). The WC's will learn about the skills necessary to make health promoting changes to the School Environment.~Following the WCC training, the Wellness Champion will receive technical assistance from the Wellness Specialist. The Wellness Specialist will work with the Wellness Champion and the school's Wellness Team to conduct a needs assessment, and develop and implement a school action plan. The Wellness Specialist will provide support and resources to the Wellness Champion and the school to help them work towards their goals. All Wellness Champions in a given school system will meet monthly, as a group, with their Wellness Specialist to discuss progress, pitfalls, and successes."