Resources to improve your already established Farm to School program or start a new one in your community.

Encouraging the use of school playgrounds, gyms, workout centers, tracks and fields expands the opportunities for physical activity. Making facilities open and available to students, their families, and the community outside of school hours can be...

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. Often suicide occurs as a result of multiple stressors and health issues paired with feelings of hopelessness and despair. Mental health conditions, specifically an...

This template was created as a guide to develop a comprehensive health and wellness plan to implement the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model in a school or district. All prompts and structures included are optional, and are provided ...

This guide was created using the principles of Assess, Identify, Make It Happen (AIM), a strategic planning process that has been shown to result in changes to school environments to promote student health. The purpose of this handbook is to provi...

Use of electronic cigarettes continues to be a serious problem in Colorado and the nation.

Resources are available to help address nicotine vaping, e-cigarette and other tobacco use among Colorado youth. E-cigarette use is not safe, especia...

The Colorado Alliance for School Health has recently published a Call to Action. Its intent is to define school health services, elevate the importance of these services, outline opportunities for health and education to work together to meet the ...

Ghosted is the story of four students as they navigate a single day of high school. When one of the them experiences anxiety and visits the counselor’s office, circumstances lead the other characters to reveal hard truths about their personal live...

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior which occurs in the context of a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior often includes a person or group of persons targeted based on their appearance, behavior, race, religion, social status, gen...

The Quality Professional Development (QPD) Webinar is a supplemental tool for QPD workshop evaluation. The webinar will help patrons identify the four characteristics of QPD, as well as learn how to evaluate the extent to which workshops align wit...

CDE, in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s evaluation branch, has completed a statewide needs assessment providing insight into the opportunities and barriers for increasing access to federal child nutrit...

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior which occurs in the context of a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior often includes a person or group of persons targeted based on their appearance, behavior, race, religion, social status, gen...

Ensuring adequate vaccination coverage helps to protect the health of students, staff, and others in the community and helps to prevent absenteeism, exclusions, and other societal and economic costs. The Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition’...

The Healthy Schools Toolkit is a new resource designed to help educators build healthy schools from the inside out to ensure all students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

The Healthy Schools Toolkit is informed by rese...

Are you interested in improving student’s access to water throughout the school day? Schools play a vital role in the health of children. Access to safe and free drinking water provides kids a healthy alternative to sugary drinks such as juice, fl...

It is important that adults establish open communication with children and youth to ask about their emotions, their worries, and what gives them hope. Being able to talk about complex and challenging emotions is a way to build and strengthen resil...

When you move more, you learn more because healthy students learn better. Research shows that physical activity (PA) affects the brain in ways that allow students to be more engaged and ready to learn.  Elementary students should not be the only o...

Programs that focus on the whole student, building social and emotion skills, and addressing social, emotional health issues are the most promising in yielding positive social, emotional outcomes.  These programs empower students to change culture...

Manitou Springs School District 14 is the 2017 Healthy School Champions recipient of the Platinum Governor’s Award for School Health and Wellness.  Manitou Springs is implementing school health into their systems, policies, structures, and culture...

Manhattan Middle School in Boulder, CO, has worked diligently over the past five years to create an Allies Club that now has more than 100 student members. This group meets weekly to explore diversity as it relates to students’ lives. The Allies g...

Fraser Valley Elementary School in Fraser, CO, is the 2018 Healthy School Champions recipient of the Platinum Governor’s Award for School Health and Wellness.  Fraser Valley has embedded health as a core component of their mission, vision, policie...

Colorado’s Buffalo School District RE- 4J has truly empowered students to be leaders and agents of change. The district wellness committee is comprised of and led by 15 high school students, and those students have fostered incredible change for t...

Research shows that physical activity can help improve academic achievement, including grads and standardized test scores, better school attendance, and decrease disciplinary problems.  In Colorado, the Physical Activity Law requires all public el...

At Poudre High School in Fort Collins, CO, students teach other students important lessons in diversity, equity, and social-emotional skills that not only create a more inclusive climate but impact academic achievement as well. Both schools are se...

Successful grant writing is part art and part science. This webinar will provide specific tips and strategies for writing a fundable grant application including an emphasis on two areas that often cause an application not to be funded: the workpla...

Schools and districts throughout the country are beginning to use student perception surveys (SPSs) to gather data about how students are experiencing their schools, classrooms, and teachers.  Listen in as this webinar explains the work in Dolores...

Schools and districts throughout the country are beginning to use student perception surveys (SPSs) to gather data about how students are experiencing their schools, classrooms, and teachers. Dolores School District in Dolores, Colo., has taken th...

We know healthy students learn better, but how do you get in front of school, district, and state leaders for vital education conversations?  The answer?  Become knowledgeable about the policies that impact school health.  Policy impacts districts...

Welcome to Part II of the Local Wellness Policy Webinar Series.  The Colorado Education Initiative and the Office of School Nutrition at the Colorado Department of Education partnered to help you update and implement your Local Wellness Policy (LW...

Welcome to Part I of the Local Wellness Policy Webinar Series.  The Colorado Education Initiative and the Office of School Nutrition at the Colorado Department of Education partnered to help you update and implement your Local Wellness Policy (LWP...

Engaging youth is a vital component to the success of any education or health endeavor. Students should be given the voice to co-create and partner with school and community leaders in the design and implementation of school health and wellness st...

Check out this webpage from The Lunch Box with lunchroom education resources. On a Rainbow Day, students are asked to use fruits and vegetables from the salad bar to create a “rainbow” of at least three colors on their tray. Once they have finishe...

Are you interested in getting students invested in the benefits of drinking water and understanding the consequences of sugary drinks? The Jeffco Student Health Advisory Council (SHAC) partnered with the regional Healthy Beverage Partnership, Kais...

Every planning process has “choice points” – those places where decisions made will either increase or decrease equity. But how does one identify those choice points? How does one use those choice points to turn equity from a value to action?

Children need snacks to keep their busy bodies and minds going. Healthy snacking at school can help kids get important nutrients, make up for skipped meals, and provide necessary fuel for learning, sports, and other activities.

Many kids br...

Experts recommend that school-aged children get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day. Schools can increase students’ daily at-school physical activity levels by incorporating more movement into out-of-school time programs...

The School Mental Health Toolkit is a blueprint for school mental health services and will guide community members, schools, local leaders, and districts through 10 best practices, including strategies for implementing, funding, and sustaining men...

Youth engagement is a critical component in creating a supportive environment for social and emotional wellness and academic growth for students. Youth engagement is a powerful approach to improving policies, programs, and practices related to you...

LiveWell’s School Food Initiative is happy to provide a variety of resources for parents and families, including action planning tools, talking points for addressing school food, as well as assessment tools and recruitment tools.

Laughaceuticals is an interactive workshop where ADULT participants engage in improvisational theatre techniques and exercises to have fun, laugh, and play. Throughout the workshop, ideas and statistics supported by evidenced-based research are pr...

The Smart Guides focus on each of the 10 component areas of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. The Family Engagement Smart Guide provides a description of the component, examples of how other components support Family Eng...

Kids who eat healthy school meals have fewer absences and higher academic achievement. Making school meals healthy, nutritious, and successful is both a challenge and an incredible opportunity.

In this recorded webinar, you’ll learn h...

As schools pursue the strategies for each component of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model, using evidenced-based strategies increases their likelihood of successful results. This document provides a sampling of the benefit...

This guide outlines the importance of nonfood rewards in schools and provides example communication messages for school and family buy-in, as well as suggestions for healthy alternatives to food rewards.

The LiveWell@School Food Initiative is pleased to offer customized trainings and workshops for school districts, utilizing a combination of training modules.

In an effort to promote school health, the Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 established nutrition standards for all foods sold in school, which includes high school coffee carts. Caffeinated beverages may only be sold in high schools, base...

This resource provides a description of tiered levels of support, offered by the University of Northern Colorado Active Schools Lab, for organizations that want to ensure their new or existing professional development (PD) services (e.g., workshop...

Action for Healthy Kids’ “Game On Program” is a flexible and adaptable multi-year framework that supports America’s schools in creating healthier school environments for students, staff, and the communities they serve.

Thi...

The Colorado Education Initiative (CEI), Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Buffalo School District RE-4J, and Jeffco Public Schools partnered to create a “how to guide” for schools and school districts wanting to engage youth voice and create youth well...

This is a technical assistance document on developing behavior intervention plans based on a functional behavioral assessment from the CDE’s Exceptional Student Services Unit. A functional behavioral assessment (FBA) is a process for gatheri...