Skills-Based Health Education Including Life Skills

Education for health is an important and essential component of an effective school health programme, and it is likely to be most effective when complemented by health-related policies and services and healthy environments. Skills-based health education has been shown to make significant contributions to the healthy development of children and adolescents and to have a positive impact on important health risk behaviours. The focus of this document is skills-based health education for teaching children and adolescents how to adopt or strengthen healthy lifestyles. It is concerned with the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and support that they need to act in healthy ways, develop healthy relationships, seek services, and create healthy environments. This document specifically:

• defines the term skills-based health education, including life skills;
• describes the theoretical foundation;
• reviews the educational approaches of skills-based health education;
• presents evaluation evidence and practical experiences to make the case for implementing skills-based health education as part of an effective school health programme;
• reviews criteria for effective programmes and preparation for those who deliver such programmes;
• describes available resources