Belonging and Well-being in Schools

Mission

To advance concepts and resources for health/mental health and well-being in Oregon’s education system.

Vision

An education system in which every child has what they need to learn every day, just as they show up in the world.

At ODE, we think of health as a holistic, multi-dimensional, lifelong state of well-being that is individual, relational, and supported by the community. We recognize privilege and power shape an individual’s and a community’s attainment of health, and drive individual and group inequities in health.

At ODE, health in education means the promotion, fostering and support of health by education systems, policy, and practices to ensure that every student in Oregon can learn to the full extent of their ability.

ODE acts on health in education by

Elevating student and family voice within conversations about health in education systems, practices, policies and procedures.
Centering racial equity and culturally and linguistically responsive systems, policies, procedures and services.
Infusing connection, belonging, safety and promoting well-being for students, families and staff who are historically and currently poorly served by the system across all learning areas.
Establishing and disseminating standards for teaching health-related content that are age-appropriate and equip students to make lifelong choices related to their health.
Establishing and disseminating the expectations for how education systems teach and model health, mental health practices, emotional growth, connection and learning.
Establishing, disseminating, and regulating minimum expectations for safety, belonging and connection from which districts, schools and ESDs can build.
Ensuring the provision of nutrition and health services necessary for a student to access their public education.
Developing, evaluating and disseminating pilots, models and demonstrations of how education systems are promoting, fostering and supporting health through policy and practices.

To learn more, please read about who we are.