OPHEA HEALTHY SCHOOLS

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Prepared for The Play Exchange 2014

OPHEA HEALTHY SCHOOLS

BUSINESS PLAN

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ABLE OF

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ONTENTS

1. Introduction ... 3

2. The Social Purpose Organization ... 3

3. Theory of Change / Social Impact... 4

4. Environmental Scan ... 7

5. Operations ... 8

6. People ... 10

8. Communications ... 11

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1. I

NTRODUCTION

Our children are at risk of being the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than their parents.1_{Some risks leading to chronic diseases are modifiable, such as tobacco use,} harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.2_{But how do we encourage our} kids to eat a healthy diet, increase their physical activity and avoid smoking in a way that will empower them to take personal responsibility for those actions not just now, but throughout their lives?

This is where the Healthy Schools approach comes in. A Healthy School involves the entire school community coming together to share ideas, plan and take action. In fact, when the entire school community takes responsibility for their choices, the changes become part of the fabric of the school culture. It’s an approach that involves all of us and at its heart are the students.

Healthy Schools is about empowering students so their voices can be heard. By engaging them in leadership opportunities, they’ll know at an early age they can have an impact on themselves, their peers, their classroom, their school and their community.

When we can come together and do this, young people are better equipped to meet the challenges of today. They’re also empowered to make healthier choices and manage the risks they face, whatever they may be, well into the future.

The secret to making kids healthier does not exist in a standard program; it requires helping kids take control of their wellbeing and that is the Healthy Schools approach.

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OCIAL

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URPOSE

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RGANIZATION

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PPROACH

Ophea’s Healthy Schools approach engages entire school communities – students, parents, school staff, public health and the school board – to promote and enhance the health and well-being of children, youth and the broader community.

Through a comprehensive and consultative process, Healthy Schools are able to plan and implement activities and strategies to address the specific health-related topics identified by the school community. Since every community has different needs, the secret to enabling kids to be healthier does not exist in a “one-size-fits-all” program. The Healthy Schools approach

1_{S. J. Olshansky, D. J. Passaro, R.C. Hershow, et al. (2005) A potential decline in life expectancy in the 21st}

century. New England Journal of Medicine. 352: 1138-1145.

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empowers schools to implement activities and strategies that will make their communities healthier, as decided by the children and youth involved.

Instead of forcing kids to become healthier, the Healthy Schools approach teaches them to work with their teachers, parents and the community to empower them to make healthy choices. Whether they’re in the schoolyard, the classroom or the lunchroom, students emerge as the leaders.

While the primary audience is made up of teachers and educators, it is our unique student engagement strategy that contributes to the overall success of the Healthy Schools approach.

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RGANIZATION

Since 1921, Opheahas been working to support the health and learning of children and youth in Ontario. Ophea is a not-for-profit organization that champions healthy, active living in schools and communities through quality programs and services, partnerships and advocacy, and is led by the vision that all children and youth value and enjoy the lifelong benefits of healthy, active living.

Operating up to 30 projects annually that are both provincial and national in scope, Ophea serves the approximately 2.1 million children and youth in Ontario. In the past 20 years, Ophea has experienced significant growth going from five staff and an operating budget of less than $1 million, to 30 staff and a $4 - 5 million operating budget.

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MPACT

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ROBLEM

There is no shortage of individuals and organizations that want to help solve Canada’s health and physical activity shortfall. Schools all over the country are attempting to become “healthy” however there is no one-size-fits-all program that is going to be impactful across different school communities. A successful approach in Northern Ontario might fail miserably in the East or in a different province altogether.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that school communities don’t always have the necessary resources to engage students in both identifying the challenges and the actions required to support healthy, active living within their school.

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Given that children and youth aged 5 – 17 years are spending an average of 9 hours, or 64% of their waking hours, being sedentary each day,3_{creating a Healthy School is an ideal and an} opportune place to start.

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OLUTION

The best way to create Healthy Schools is to teach school communities how to become healthier rather than try to do it for them or force a prescribed program on them. The Healthy Schools approach empowers school communities to follow a simple, step-by-step process to change their school for the better. These steps include:

1. Identifying a priority health topic

(i.e. physical activity, healthy eating, substance use) 2. Forming a student-led action team

3. Developing a plan of action

4. Implementing and evaluating the plan

5. Celebrating accomplishments and planning for the future

Recognizing that all communities have unique needs, we work with schools across Ontario to guide them through the Healthy Schools approach, which builds in flexibility that allow schools to ensure the process is relevant for themselves and their students. Individual schools that follow this process then report back and are formally certified as a Healthy School and recognized for their work.

Every school in Canada has the potential to become a Healthy School - all they need are the tools and support to get there. Our mandate is to provide those supports to build their capacity to implement this process on an annual basis.

We collaborate with school boards, schools, parents, public health units and community partners to facilitate this approach. Our work focuses on supporting school leaders to understand and utilize our tools so that they, in turn, can empower their students to take action on the issues that are most important to them.

As the Healthy Schools approach grows to all 5,000 Ontario schools, we also want to make it accessible across the country. With additional funding, we will have the capacity to create and share our Healthy Schools Certification with provinces and schools across Canada, helping more schools to become Healthy Schools as well as establishing a strong foundation for schools to then benchmark themselves against.

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OGIC

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The benefits of undertaking a process to become a Healthy School are worth it. There are numerous examples across Ontario of schools and communities working together in this way and seeing tremendous results.

These results include increased physical activity and trends toward healthier eating (for both students and teachers); increased student attentiveness, alertness and attendance; higher test scores, a reduction in behavioural issues; and a stronger sense of student belonging, attachment and safety in the school community.

Based on the results of multiple third party academic studies conducted in relation to Healthy Schools, school communities adopting this approach saw the following changes:

 90% increase amongst students in their perception that the school is a fair and safe place to be

 55% increase amongst students in their sense of school belonging

 98% increase amongst students in their enthusiasm for Health and Physical Education taught at school

Inputs

• Website with tools and resources to utilize the Healthy Schools approach

• Facilitaters to support schools to implement the approach • Students provide input

on priority health topics

Activities

•Identify a priority healthy topic •Form a student-led

action team •Develop a plan of

action •Implement and

evaluate the plan •Celebrate accomplishments Outputs •Increased physcial activity •Healthier eating •Higher test scores •Reduction in

behavioural issues •Decreased

substance use

Outcomes

• Stronger sense of connecttion with school and community • Personal ownership of

ones health and well-being

• Long term engagement in and adoption of healthy habits • Decrease in early onset

of chronic diseases

Student driven initiatives

Championing healthy, active living in schools and communities through quality programs and services, partnerships and advocacy

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 34% increase in reported physical activity outside of school time

 42% increase in the ability to implement 20 minutes of DPA (Daily Physical Activity) in schools

 Over 20% increase in student EQAO scores (includes: Reading and Math - Grade 3 and Reading and Math - Grade 6).4

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NVIRONMENTAL

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TRENGTHS

Nowhere else in Canada does another initiative exactly like Healthy Schools (and Healthy Schools Certification) exist. We also know there is a growing need and desire to implement similar initiatives across the country.

We are one of the few organizations in Ontario that can mobilize a diverse group of individuals within the school environment (i.e. school staff, students, principals, parents and public health) and we have a proven track record of doing so.

We have been working with sector partners and the government for many years now and have established ourselves as a bridge between the Ministry of Education and frontline teachers. There is an opportunity for us to now share our experience and lessons learned to support the building of these relationships with other provinces.

Our programming and services are offered in both French and English (including bilingual Ophea staff), allowing us to seamlessly work with Ontario’s 5,000 schools, and positioning us well to work with all provinces in the future.

Our brand is very well-respected in education, public health, government and within the health sector both provincially and nationally and we have the opportunity to further leverage it to a much larger, national audience through The Play Exchange competition.

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EAKNESSES

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HALLENGES

While we recognize the strength of our brand in Ontario, we do acknowledge that we have not had the opportunity to formally work with other provinces to collaborate on Healthy Schools.

4_{“Living School”, Dr. Martin Shain, 2004 (} http://www.ophea.net/healthy-schools-communities/making-it-happen),"Getting to DPA", Dr.Martin Shain, 2006.

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Within Ontario, promoting our Healthy Schools brand can also be a challenge. There are many different health organizations working in ‘Healthy Schools’ using different terminology, tools and training. As you can imagine, this leads to a great deal of confusion and can limit the support we can offer to some schools.

Being confused as a government agency is also a common misconception that we face. It is not uncommon for the public to assume that we are an arm of the government when in fact we work together as partners to help implement government mandated policies and strategies in Ontario schools.

As an organization, Ophea only receives project-based funding and have operated on this basis for many years. With no core funding, we recognize the sustainability challenges ahead. This is especially concerning with so many not-for-profit health promotion organizations all competing for the same pool of funds.

Showing how our work impacts the province and, later, the country, will be a critical part of our growth strategy. Having the right support and tools to effectively evaluate our initiatives will better position us as a leader in Canada for creating Healthy Schools.

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PERATIONS

Building on the success of the Healthy Schools approach, the next step in our evolution is to expand our reach through Healthy Schools Certification.

In order to scale, we would take a two-pronged approach: 1. Enhancing Healthy Schools Certification in Ontario 2. Supporting Healthy Schools Certification across Canada

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NHANCING

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CHOOLS

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ERTIFICATION IN

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NTARIO

Ophea made a commitment in Spring 2014 to internally invest $100,000 to finance the initial development phase of Healthy Schools Certification. In November 2014, funding was secured to support the basic implementation of the initiative through to the 2017 / 2018 school year in Ontario. However, recognizing that the province of Ontario is home to almost 40% of the Canadian population and 5,000 schools, additional funding will allow us to enhance the Healthy Schools approach, specifically as it relates to the following key components over a three-year period:

 Communications: Execute broad-based provincial communications and partner on a national communications strategy to increase awareness and participation in Healthy Schools. Currently, we are unable to communicate our messages broadly and rely

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mostly on inexpensive electronic communications such as email and social media to share information, which is limiting.

 Resource Development: Be responsive to schools on an annual basis to develop, adapt, translate and share resources (e.g., activity cards, lesson plans, student guides) to assist them with addressing physical activity and related health topics in their school community. Currently, we have limited funds to develop and maintain new resources and will not be able to be as responsive to new participating school communities as we would like to be to ensure their success.

 Training and Capacity Building: Increase our reach as it relates to training and capacity building. Currently, we are able to deliver online training (i.e. e-modules, webinars) but we are not able to travel to communities to support school leaders with implementing the Healthy Schools approach. An increased training and capacity building budget would open up additional, in-person, opportunities including the potential for regional Healthy Schools training and conferences.

 Evaluation: All schools participating in Healthy Schools Certification will be required to submit annual reports to demonstrate their effectiveness. However, the review and sharing of this information is a time intensive process and as the program grows, will require additional supports. An increased evaluation budget would allow for more in-depth review and sharing of evaluation findings both provincially and nationally to demonstrate the impact and reach of Healthy Schools in school communities across the province.

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UPPORTING

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EALTHY

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CHOOLS

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ERTIFICATION

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CROSS

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ANADA

Similar to Ophea, organizations exist across Canada that share the same commitment to creating Healthy Schools. While we recognize differences exist across provinces and it can be challenging to collaborate between organizations, our conversations with numerous provincial partners lead us to believe there is both a need and a desire for this initiative to expand outside of Ontario.

In the spirit of the Healthy Schools approach, we would leverage future funds raised to collaborate with ‘Healthy Schools’ partner organizations across Canada, such as the Department of Education in PEI, Ever Active Schools in Alberta, and DASH-BC in British Columbia. We would support the development of communication materials, resources, and training to inform the Healthy Schools approach in other provinces based on Ontario’s Healthy School Certification.

Having already prioritized this work and made the internal investment to fund the development of a prototype we understand the steps required to develop a Healthy Schools

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Certification framework and would leverage existing resources to enhance Healthy Schools on a national level.

This work would be accomplished over a three year period through the following key activities:

Year 1

2015/2016 School Year

Year 2

2016-2017 School Year

Year 3

2017/2018 School Year

o Identify potential provincial partners

o Hold exploratory partner meetings

o Confirm provincial partnerships

o Develop two year plan for program development and evaluation

o Begin collaborative provincial program development and / or adaptation process

o Execute needs assessment, develop program concept, begin program development, facilitate program review with partners

o Recruit and pilot test certification program with local school communities

o Finalize program and prepare for national roll out in identified provinces

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EOPLE

Led by the Executive Director & CEO, Ophea operates with 30 employees who bring specialized skills and experience in the areas of health and physical education, health promotion, comprehensive school health, program development, project management, marketing, evaluation, technology, finance and administration. With several bilingual staff, we also have capacity for developing and implementing French language services.

In our current organizational structure, our staff are required to manage a number of different projects (on average 3 – 5 annually) and are unable to fully dedicate their time to Healthy Schools. As we grow and enhance our Healthy Schools Certification in Ontario and support certification across Canada, we will need to move towards dedicating full-time staff support to this work.

We envision hiring the following full-time staff and consulting support early on:  Healthy Schools Certification Program Manager

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 Heathly Schools Certification Community Consultant  Evaluation Consultant

These new roles will allow for greater specialization and capacity building in Ontario, as well as the ability to support Healthy Schools Certification across Canada.

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OMMUNICATIONS

As we scale Healthy Schools we will need to engage in the following key strategic communications activities to support our growth:

 Review Brand Strategy: The recognition and equity currently lies with Ophea, whereas “Healthy Schools” is a widely used term. We will need to decide how to formally communicate the relationship between Ophea and Healthy Schools as we embark on the certification process to create clear messaging and reduce confusion in the marketplace.

 Focused and Targeted Communications: Communication targets will need to support our business goals in the first two years. By communicating directly to school-based contacts (i.e. School Boards, Principals / School Administration, Parent Councils, Teachers’ Associations) in Ontario, we can ensure that all 5,000 schools are aware of the steps to certification, as well as the support and resources available to them to become a certified Healthy School.

 Showcase Results and Success Stories: We will develop materials for communicating with prospective partners that focus on Healthy Schools’ successes in Ontario (and later elsewhere). These may include presentation decks, web content, and additional collateral that demonstrate how to become a certified Healthy School, as well as showcase the results of those that have already been certified (when available).  Communications Toolkit: In subsequent years, expansion outside of Ontario will be

managed through prospective partner organizations like the Department of Education in PEI, Ever Active Schools in Alberta, and DASH-BC in British Columbia. We will need to develop a communications toolkit to share with our partners to ensure all provinces are accurately and consistently communicating the essence of the Healthy Schools approach while remaining true to the core principles of what is means to be a ‘certified’ Healthy School.

 Social Media: We will continue to use social and earned media opportunities to share our success stories. We will also share coverage with our prospective partners and

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communities to increase the profile and brand awareness of Healthy Schools Certification across Canada.

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ROJECT

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OSTS

Healthy Schools is one of six finalists chosen from The Play Exchange, a national online challenge to find and support innovative ideas to get Canadians healthier and more active. This business plan and estimate of projected costs have been developed to support Healthy Schools’ entry in The Play Exchange. The information within this plan was provided by Healthy Schools unless otherwise noted.

To execute our two-pronged approach to scale over the next three years, we plan to spend resources as follows:

OPHEA HEALTHY SCHOOLS