NEW: Positive School Climate Toolkit

School Climate is defined as the quality of school life as experienced by those interacting with school environments (students, caregivers, school personnel). A positive school climate can have impacts on a wide range of outcomes, both health and academic, and has increasingly become an essential component in school improvement and bullying prevention.

This toolkit was developed to provide an introduction into how public health practitioners can use their expertise to create meaningful partnerships with schools and work to strengthen positive school climate. Appreciating the contextual differences within communities and schools, this toolkit focuses on broad-based approaches that can be implemented concurrently and with any strategy.

Using three approaches, Shared Risk and Protective Factors; Positive Youth Development; and Data Informed Processes, public health practitioners can partner with schools in multiple ways including:

1. Ensuring a focus on primary prevention
2. Encouraging evidence-based programming and best practices
3.  Making the health connection meaningful to schools
4. Leveraging and developing community partnerships
5. Strengthening school-based policy supports