Students enter the classroom with more than just a backpack. With them comes their experiences at home, and in the community, good or bad. The “whole child” model was introduced by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model, which includes 10 components to taking a whole child approach to health and education:

1. Physical education and physical activity.
2. Nutrition environment and services.
3. Health education.
4. Social and emotional climate.
5. Physical environment.
6. Health services.
7. Counseling, psychological, and social services.
8. Employee wellness.
9. Community involvement.
10. Family engagement.

This approach considers student and staff physical and mental well-being while including family and community in the students’ education. As a way of seeing how states were adopting this approach, the National Association of State Boards of Education, in partnership with Child Trends, created a School Health Policies Database that breaks down the state statutory, regulatory, and policy landscape into the 10 components listed above.

Through the pandemic, we saw this approach happen organically as schools became the hub for nutrition services, districts invested in school-based health services using federal relief dollars, and families were engaged in their student’s schools in ways never seen before.

States have taken various approaches to implementing a whole child approach, including authorizing the use of the model in schools, weaving it into health curriculums, and integrating it into the coordinated school health programs. One example of broad adoption of a whole child approach is Ohio where the Department of Education & Workforce developed a Whole Child Framework that highlights five tenets for supporting student success. The tenets acknowledge that students should be healthy, safe, supported, challenged, and engaged. This approach mirrors elements of continuous quality improvement present in the Weikart Center’s Pyramid of Program Quality which elevates the importance of safe, supportive, interactive, and engaging environments that are foundational to youth development.

Another example is North Carolina where the State Board of Education established a Whole Child NC Advisory Committee. This interagency body brings together public health, human services, safety, advocacy, family and community engagement, and education stakeholders from state and local agencies to make recommendations to the State Board of Education in support of children and youth in the state. This cross-system collaboration is a critical principle of whole child approaches and when done well can support positive youth development and equity.

Whole child approaches utilize cross-system collaboration and principles of equity to ensure that all children and youth gain an education while being supported as individuals. States, localities, and individual schools have the opportunity to incorporate some or all the components of a whole child approach, or make one of their own, to support each student’s unique needs within their circumstances.

While this approach has gained traction in states nationwide, there’s still much to learn. Dive deeper into other frameworks and resources focused on whole child approaches:

• The Whole Child Policy Toolkit for state policy makers, developed by the Whole Child Policy Roundtable – which included the Forum for Youth Investment, national public sector associations, and other national organizations.
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Whole Child Approach to Education