About our mission, vision, and values
Student and family health, well-being and educational success are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Healthy children and youth are better able to learn, and an educated population will live longer, healthier lives. Health, well-being and belonging are
prerequisites for teaching and learning. Supporting student academic excellence, belonging and well-being requires a shared focus that may look different based on the needs, assets, strengths, and size of a district and school community and the individuals and families it serves.
Our Unit
fosters belonging and well-being by promoting the health and mental health of Oregon's school communities . Oregon’s dedicated school staff members strive to make our schools places where all students feel connected to community and learning, find belonging in their complex identities and can find meaning and purpose each day.
We envision a future where every school in Oregon provides every child all the support needed to learn and thrive, every day, just as that child shows up in the world.
Supporting student health, mental health and well-being through
a health in education approach acknowledges the unique role of schools in communities and is focused on the promotion, teaching, fostering and support of health through policies and practices to ensure that every student in Oregon can learn to the full extent of their ability.
To achieve this, we are committed to a future where:
- All schools in Oregon implement student-centered well-being models, ensuring that students can learn to their full potential.
- All school districts in Oregon have wellness policies and implement employee wellness initiatives that support school staff.
- We sustain and deepen system alignments with other state and local agencies to ensure that students and staff have easy access to the well-being supports they need to thrive.
In
ODE's Health in Education Unit, we see well-being as a holistic, multi-dimensional, lifelong state of health that is individual, relational, and supported by the community. We know and acknowledge that privilege and power shape an individual’s and a community’s attainment of health, and drive individual and group inequities in health. Well-being includes physical, mental and social health.
About our work
As part of ODE, the Health in Education Unit is guided by our agency's values of integrity, accountability, excellence, and equity.
We bring these values into schools through our work. Our work on health in education is
- Trauma informed and resiliency focused
- Strengths based
- Equity centered
- Driven by Oregon’s transformative Social Emotional Learning Standards