Major grant to help prevent children and young people from becoming disadvantaged
The Danish TrygFonden foundation has earmarked a total of DKK 24 million over the next four years to ensure the further development and national roll-out of skolesundhed.dk - a tool that has been developed by researchers at Aarhus University in cooperation with the Danish municipalities, and which supports the work being done with the well-being and health of children and young people in primary and lower secondary school.
An AU-generated, web-based system which will be used to ensure children's well-being and health is now being implemented throughout the country.
Skolesundhed.dk, as the tool is called, has its roots in the Mental Health Research Programme at Aarhus University and has been developed and tested during the past seven years in collaboration with a number of municipalities.
A grant of DKK 24 million from the TrygFonden foundation provides an opportunity for all Danish municipalities to be offered skolesundhed.dk during the coming years, and for the development of a new platform so that disadvantaged children can receive faster and better help. It takes the form of a strategic partnership with the Danish Committee for Health Education, which is in charge of the national implementation in a professional partnership with the Child Mental Health Research Programme, as well as the 20 municipalities who are already participating.
Great social priority
"Preventing children and young people from becoming disadvantaged ought to have great social priority. But if the schools are to succeed in their efforts with disadvantaged children there will be a need for what skolesundhed.dk can offer: a systematic safeguarding of all children's well-being, organised knowledge sharing and development of targeted evidence-based initiatives in relation to both the individual pupil and the class," says Professor in Child Mental Health at Aarhus University, Carsten Obel.
During the next four years, skolesundhed.dk will be continuously expanded with proposals for specific activities, so that schools and health visitors can find advice and guidance, if a measurement indicates that certain groups or classes are becoming disadvantaged.
Facts:
- The new skolesundhed.dk is expected to go national from 2015 and can be used free of charge by all Danish municipalities for two years.
- The project has been initiated by the Danish Committee for Health Education in collaboration with the Child Mental Health Research Programme, Aarhus University.
Read more (in Danish) at:
Further information:
Professor Carsten Obel
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University
Mobile: +45 2942 8405
co@ph.au.dk
Director Charan Nelander
The Danish Committee for Health Education
Mobile: +45 2548 7661
cn@sundkom.dk
Project Manager Dorthe Lysgaard
TrygFonden
Mobile: +45 2467 9810
dl@trygfonden.dk