Teachers training for a health promoting school. An Italian 2007 experience

Issue During the last years, health promotion was becoming a more and more central aim in the formulation of the public health strategies in Italy. This change happened in parallel with the political and organizational changes of the national health system whose main characteristic is the process of devolution of health government from the State to the Regions. Today the Regional Health Administrations have a large decisional role. In this framework, some regions are developing new health governance instruments based on the promotional vision of health. In particular, one promising tool is the Local Health Agreements (LHA) based on a very intersectoral approach to planning and implementation of health policy at ground level. The LHA can be described as the final result of formal relationships among all the stakeholders who are active on health matters in a community. The agreement is related to different settings relevant for health, one of the most important is the school setting. Description Our experience is about the development of an experimental training for teachers working in the secondary schools, as the most important action included in the LHA. Main questions: to what extent can this training enter in a stable way in the school organization? How is it perceived by teachers involved or not? What is positive/negative in this experience? The planning phase started in January 2007 when an intersectoral and multiprofessional working group was created. All school institutes in the area were involved; participating teachers were 30. The training phase started in March 2007. Expected results were that teachers develop a comprehension of preadolescent learning styles and strategies in order to translate this knowledge into teaching styles and strategies. The course was organized in six 3 hours meetings based on the action learning approach and with emphasis on experiences both of the participants and the students. Process and outcome evaluation are preformed. Lessons At the moment, evaluation is on the way but some preliminary considerations can be made regarding the planning phase. The implementation of the intersectoral/multiprofessional working group can be optimised if there is a clear and strong commitment from direction level (both of the Health district and of the schools) and if an explicit mandate for the professionals involved does exist. Conclusions It is relevant, for a new public health perspective like the health promoting school, that a strong alliance is established among the stakeholders interested. Intersectoral and multidisciplinary approach planning and implementation of school teachers’ in service training is a promising way towards a productive and sustainable actions in terms of transferability of results.