School Nurse Leadership Program

Perhaps more than anyone, school nurses understand how the school environment shapes children’s health, and how children’s health shapes their ability to succeed at school.

The air children breathe, the food they eat, and the opportunities they have to be physically active affect their health and learning for a lifetime. Children spend most of their waking hours outside of home in school, where poor indoor air quality, unhealthy food choices and declining opportunities for physical activity are contributing to epidemics of childhood obesity and asthma.

While the reasons for these dramatic increases in asthma and obesity are multi-faceted and complex, it is clear that schools are key places in which to promote the healthy environments, healthy food, and active lifestyles that can reverse these trends and provide a context for student achievement and wellbeing.

School Nurse Leadership Training participants, Spring 2007

To bring about the changes in policy and practice that will create healthy school environments, HSC engages school nurses to develop and implement wellness and environmental health practices at the school and district levels and to advocate for state-level policy changes that will make a difference for great numbers of children.

A key part of this engagement is our School Nurse Leadership Training program. During the 2006-07 school year, 40 nurses participated in training focused on school wellness (food and fitness) issues; for the 2007-08 school year, 35 nurses are taking part in training focused on school environmental health.

To learn more about HSC’s School Nurse Leadership Training and other school nurse initiatives, please click here to download our PDF overview of the program »

Interested in getting involved in HSC’s school nurse leadership programs? Please e-mail Donna Fishman or call (312) 419-1810, and your name will be added to our contact list. We are planning more school nurse programs, and will contact you as details of these programs are available.

At a Glance: School Nurse Leadership Training

75 school nurses have participated in the training since it began in 2006: 40 nurses were involved in the 2006-07 leadership training program and 35 are currently involved in the 2007-08 training program.

Training features a series of three one-day sessions, with assignments and ongoing communication in between.

Trainers include representatives from Healthy Schools Campaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, National-Louis University, and the Illinois Department of Health and Human Services.

Professional credits and graduate credits are available to participating nurses.

Funding is provided by the Chicago Community Trust and the Stranahan Foundation so that training and materials are provided free of charge, and mileage and substitute nurse expenses are reimbursed.