CSBA Committee on Student Health and Wellness is committed to working in partnership with government, non-government, and community partners to advocate for active healthy lifestyles. Benefits to creating healthy learning environments include: greater overall achievement, well-rounded students, decreased discipline problems and improved attendance, improved lifelong health, reduced disparities. We are committed to demonstrating leadership and providing a national voice in responding to the health and wellness challenges of students across Canada.
After collaborating with several national partners, the CSBA is proud to adopt a Charter of Commitment to Student Health and Wellness. It provides a clear mission, terms of reference and a framework for our work. Find the full charter in the link below.
Charter of Commitment – Student Health and Well-Being
RK ON THE ISSUES
FIRST NATIONS, MÉTIS AND INUIT EDUCATION – Advocacy activities have included communications and meetings with the offices of INAC, provincial Premiers and the Prime Minister to call for appropriate funding for FNMI education as well as clarity on plans that will affect education following the Daniels vs. Canada case. Furthermore, we are working with and have offered our full support to the AFN and their initiatives in education. We have been following up on valuable resources provided by partners at the NCTR Round Table in January and have posted them on the CSBA website (including treaty maps, teacher resources and information to support recognition of treaty and traditional territories). Since January, we have completed work on a cross country portrait, also on our website, showing school board structure with FNMI representation, board progress with regards to the TRC Calls to Action and some promising practices today. Going forward, the committee will continue to monitor the framework that the federal ministries, INAC and FCSD are putting together on Childcare; gather information on voluntary self-identification of staff, trustees and students; examine existing agreements between First Nations communities and boards and look into permanency policy for Indigenous teachers.
STUDENT HEALTH AND WELLNESS – After collaborating with several national partners, the CSBA has adopted a Charter of Commitment to Student Health and Wellness. It provides a clear mission, terms of reference and a framework for our work. The Charter is available on our website. Following some collaborative work with the Pan-Canadian Joint Consortium on School Health (JCSH) which represents the ministries of both Health and Education in all Canadian jurisdictions, we have added three outstanding tools to our Health and Wellness Resources, all of which are free and bilingual: Positive Mental Health Tool Kit, Youth Engagement Tool Kit, Healthy School Planner. As there is already significant work being done in individual jurisdictions on substance abuse, the SHWC committee will be doing a policy framework survey before providing recommendations for school boards on the Legalization of Cannabis. Our collaboration with Respect in Schools is being developed with a view to providing a ministry supported, national on-line training baseline on abuse, harassment and bullying for all adults who work with youth. The two recent issues of Facts on Education, published in collaboration with CEA address two health and wellness issues, providing research on The Most Effective to Ways to Support Student Mental Wellness and The Best Way to Successfully Integrate Recent Immigrants into Canadian Classrooms (see www.cdnsba.org). We are also working on a National School Health Checklist to help boards identify strengths and weaknesses in their schools.
COPYRIGHT – We continue to monitor the 2017 Federal review of copyright regulations and the impact changes could have on schools and students. CSBA is ready to defend “fair dealing” on a national scale, assisting at the CMEC coalition, with several other concerned partners.
“A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period. It presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often
OPSBA were extraordinary hosts of a well run event with an exceptional program. International speakers brought perspective and wisdom and provided direction that certainly will have an impact on the strategic planning of the trustees of our Canadian education system. 
