Looking Ahead: A Roadmap to a Healthier Future

At Healthier Generation, our mission is to ensure that every mind, every body, and every young person is healthy and ready to succeed. We know that this is no small task; achieving this goal will take bold and coordinated action from educators, policymakers, and non-profits.   

To advance this work, Healthier Generation joined the National Healthy Schools Collaborative (NHSC) — a group of nationally-recognized organizations working in health and education that were tapped to identify the most promising opportunities to accelerate the integration of health and learning over the next decade.

The result of those efforts is the 10-Year Roadmap for Healthy Schools. The Roadmap is organized around ten key priorities: 

1. Create shared goals that recognize the importance and interdependence of all elements of a healthy school. 
2. Institute adequate and equitable funding models at the federal, state, and local levels to create and sustain healthy schools. 
3. Bolster the quality of local health systems, health care services, and social service organizations’ capacity to provide consistent primary care. 
4. Provide healthy spaces to learn, play, and work for every student and educator. 
5. Optimize existing funding streams. 
6. Strengthen the knowledge of the interdependence between education and health. 
7. Improve data regulation, collection, transparency, privacy, and interoperability. 
8. Address workforce shortages by attracting, developing, championing, and retaining educators who reflect the population of students in communities where they work, live, and play. 
9. Support the public, particularly families, in becoming partners in strengthening health and learning outcomes. 
10. Enhance the ability of community-based organizations to identify, and mobilize people and communities around issues related to healthy schools. 

The Roadmap lays out opportunities for action at every level: federal, state, and local. Key activities include addressing workforce shortages, creating and optimizing funding streams, supporting families, and providing healthy spaces for students and staff to learn, play, and work. 

To support implementation of this 10-year vision, we have aligned the Thriving Schools Integrated Assessment with the Roadmap priorities. Educators can use the action planning tool and related resources in the Healthier Generation Action Center to track progress towards a heathier school. 

Learn more at www.healthyschoolsroadmap.org.