Improving the Coordination Between and Within Systems
11.3 Improving the Coordination Between and Within Systems
Greater cooperation and coordination between the school systems and public health systems will enhance the number of students who receive consistent sexual health messages and support from schools, health clinics, parents and the community. This coordination in the delivery of programs will result in more responsible decisions among youth.
This policy direction has three components; (1) improved mechanisms for coordination, (2) increased use of interdisciplinary learning and (3) identified ways to conduct and coordinate youth awareness campaigns.
Improving Coordination Mechanisms
This study found that both the school and the public health systems are loosely coupled, meaning that policy directions are not simply imposed on lower levels in the system. However, we found little use of the mechanisms of clear goal setting, continuous professional development and extensive communications that are needed to ensure that such loosely coupled systems operate well. Further, this study found that interministry and interagency cooperation of sexual health issues is not regularly supported by written protocols, active committees, assigned staff time and enforced policy frameworks.
We recommend that the public health system be given the role, resources and inservice to ensure that this coordination is strengthened.
More Interdisciplinary Learning
This study has found that little use of interdisciplinary learning, across the core curriculum, is being used to prevent HIV and STD or to promote sexual health. This strategy can help to reduce the overcrowded curricula, provided that there are clear outcomes, scope and sequence for these curricula so that such interdisciplinary learning is planned well.
We recommend that research be done to plan, identify or develop such interdisciplinary learning opportunities and to specify, based on research evidence, the essential learning outcomes required for sexuality education of school-aged children and youth.
Finding Ways to Conduct, Coordinate Youth Awareness Campaigns
This study has found that youth-oriented awareness campaigns are no longer being used extensively by public health systems and that the majority of teachers and nurses do not often use community events or AIDS Week materials in their regular work. We also found that such campaigns are not often coordinated with the delivery of information and counseling services, nor with school programs. We have recognized the difficulty in acquiring resources for such campaigns, but they are a necessary part of a community-school strategy to reach adolescents.
We recommend that various strategies be used to pool resources and locate additional corporate resources in order to conduct these youth awareness campaigns. We further recommend that research be done to identify exemplary practices in coordinating such youth awareness campaigns with clinic and school programs.