Promoting Health and Academic Success : The WSCC Approach

Promoting Health and Academic Success was the first book to cover the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model, now a widely accepted framework for promoting health and learning in schools. With increasing evidence that health and academic success go hand in hand, this second edition delves deeper into the WSCC approach to showcase best practices that truly put the child at the center of health and education.

Promoting Health and Academic Success, Second Edition, boasts a team of editors and contributors who have experience as leaders in school health and WSCC at the national, state, and local levels. It provides direction for educators, school health professionals, and health agencies interested in promoting student health, diversity, equity, inclusion, and advocacy for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the WSCC approach.

The second edition has been updated to incorporate the knowledge and experiences that have been gained since the first edition of the book:

• Discussion of new challenges for schools and communities such as COVID-19, school safety, and curriculum and programming decisions related to social justice and racism
• Real-world examples to provide practice and multiple perspectives on WSCC
• Application activities and case studies that engage students in applied learning within the context of WSCC simulations
• Related online learning tools, delivered in HKPropel, including review items, and project-based assignments
• Perspectives from WSCC leaders related to current practice and future WSCC considerations

This resource is a must-have for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of initiatives  designed to promote education and health for students through meaningful engagement of family members, community members, and school faculty and staff members. The coordinated initiatives presented in Promoting Health and Academic Success: The WSCC Approach, Second Edition, provide a valuable resource for educators, community health practitioners, and other stakeholders engaged in promoting health and academic success for school-age children.

Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is included with all new print books.

David A. Birch, PhD, is a professor emeritus in the department of health science at the University of Alabama. He served as a professor and the department chair from 2011 to 2018 and was coordinator of the doctoral program from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as a professor and the chair of the department of health education and recreation at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale and as a faculty member at Indiana University and Penn State University.

Birch is a past president of the American Association for Health Education (AAHE) and the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE). He has served on the board of directors of AAHE, the American School Health Association (ASHA), and the National Association of Health Education Centers as well as on the SOPHE board of trustees. He is currently a board member of the Foundation for the Advancement of Health Education (FAHE) and is on the editorial board of Health Education & Behavior. He is a former editorial board member for the Journal of School Health, Pedagogy in Health Promotion: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and the American Journal of Health Studies.

Birch is a charter fellow of AAHE and an ASHA fellow. He has received the highest professional award from three organizations—the ASHA William A. Howe Award (2019), the SOPHE Distinguished Fellow Award (2018), and the Eta Sigma Gamma Honor Award (2015)—along with numerous other professional awards. He was Illinois State University's 2008 Ann E. Nolte Scholar in Health Education. As a faculty member at Indiana University, he received the Trustees’ Teaching Award and the Teaching Excellence Recognition Award.

Donna M. Videto, PhD, RMCHES, is a SUNY distinguished service professor and professor emerita of health. She has worked in school health education and pedagogy for over 40 years. She has worked with school districts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York to advance school health and the WSCC model, and she taught K-12 health education early in her career. Currently she works in international education, developing courses and teaching in Italy and the Czech Republic.

Recently retired from SUNY Cortland, where she taught graduate and undergraduate students in health education and education, Videto also served as the coordinator of student teaching in health education and the director of the faculty development center. She has written over 30 publications, including the books Promoting Health and Academic Success: The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Approach and 2011 Needs Assessment and Program Planning for Health Education and Health Promotion, and she has made over 150 national, regional, and state-level presentations at conferences and as part of her committee work for SOPHE, AAHE, and ASHA. An AAHE fellow and recipient of the Delbert Oberteuffer Mortar Board for excellence in school health education preparation, she recently completed her position as the vice president of the Foundation for the Advancement of Health Education (FAHE) and currently serves as a scholarship application reviewer for that foundation.

Hannah P. Catalano, PhD, MCHES, is an associate professor of public health at University of North Carolina–Wilmington (UNCW). She currently serves on the board of directors for the American School Health Association (ASHA) and cochairs the ASHA Research and Publications Committee. She is an editorial board member for the Journal of School Health, a member of the National Committee on the Future of School Health Education, and a member of the SOPHE Think Tank work group that provides strategic direction on the Institute for Higher Education Academy.

Catalano is a founding faculty fellow of the UNC-UNCW Research Collaboratory in the College of Health & Human Services at UNCW. She also founded and currently leads the university’s Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Research Collaboratory (WSCCRC), which is a unique initiative to engage college students in scholarly discussions around WSCC and to facilitate meaningful research on the model. She previously served as a member of the National Consensus for School Health Education’s Expert Review Group and is a former Future Leaders Academy Fellow of ASHA and NextUp Leadership Development Fellow of UNCW.