Healthy Together at Schools
Schools play an important role in teaching kids about the importance of healthy habits – and Healthy Together is here to help. Led by Atrium Health’s Levine Children’s, our program is designed to be easy to weave into your busy day and provides the tools you need to promote healthy behaviors at your school.
As your partner, we’ll help you build upon your successes and connect your efforts back to the community to create a greater impact on the families you serve. So, we invite you to join us – let’s get Healthy Together!
Program Overview
We use evidence-based strategies to improve the policies, practices and environments that influence healthy eating and active living in childcare and out-of-school environments.
The Healthy Together program promotes following the 5-2-1-0 model daily: 5 or more servings of fruits and veggies, 2 hours or less of recreational screen time, 1 hour or more of physical activity and 0 sugary drinks.
Once you become a registered site, you’ll have access to resources and support that make implementing Healthy Together (and 5-2-1-0) at your childcare center simple – and fun!
- Engage with and commit to the program.
- Assess the environment and create an action plan.
- Implement the action plan.
- Complete the Healthy Together survey.
- Celebrate!
- Reflecting on their nutrition and physical activity environment and make changes to support healthy behaviors in students
- Encouraging healthy eating in students by providing appropriate foods and beverages, and role modeling healthy eating behaviors
- Increasing opportunities for physical activity
- Reaching out to parents to promote healthy behaviors at home
- Promoting the 5-2-1-0 model
- Working toward stronger district wellness policies
- Personalized help to meet your school’s unique nutrition and physical activity goals
- A free toolkit loaded with resources for both your staff and your families
- Opportunities for free training for you and staff members
- Regular communications from Healthy Together
- Opportunities to network with other schools across the region, just like yours, working to improve the health of our children
- Setting nutrition and physical activity goals and then working toward achieving them
- Completing the Healthy Together survey each spring
Healthy Together team roles
It takes a committed team to make Healthy Together a success, and we’re here to support you as you work toward your goals. These are the roles and responsibilities of each Healthy Together team member.
The Program Coordinator is located at Atrium Health in Charlotte, NC. They handle logistics for Healthy Together.
The Program Coordinator is responsible for:
- Overseeing all Healthy Together sites across the Atrium Health footprint
- Developing and maintaining frameworks for multiple counties
- Establishing and maintaining partners who can implement the Healthy Together model locally
- Creating and managing annual evaluation activities and data collection
- Creating and managing program tools and resources, including toolkits, e-newsletters, the website and trainings
- Recruiting and training Setting Leads
- Communicating with Setting Leads and Site Champions regularly
- Providing technical assistance to Setting Leads
The Setting Lead is responsible for all of Healthy Together’s school-based sites in a given county. They work directly with Site Champions and their teams. The Setting Lead is the Site Champion’s local Healthy Together contact.
The Setting Lead is responsible for:
- Registering sites to participate in the Healthy Together program designed for their designated setting
- Working with a Site Champion to go through the Healthy Together 5-Step Path to Success, helping to change a site’s environment and policies to support healthy behaviors
- Connecting Site Champions to healthy eating and active living resources in the community
- Communicating, training and supporting evaluation activities
Every Healthy Together registered school has a Site Champion to lead their school through the 5-Step Path to Success. The Site Champion is someone who’s at the school daily, and who knows and can help influence the school’s healthy eating and physical activity practices.
The Site Champion is responsible for:
- Signing up their school with the local Healthy Together Setting Lead, being listed as the Healthy Together Site Champion and giving their contact information
- Reviewing the Healthy Together Action Planning Packet each year with their team and determining what their school wants to achieve
- Ensuring that parents, administrators and all staff are aware of and, if possible, included in the work
- Sharing the 5-2-1-0 message and Healthy Together resources with parents and staff
- Reaching out to the Healthy Together Program Coordinator with any questions, challenges or successes they come across in their efforts to increase healthy eating and physical activity
- Completing the Healthy Together survey each spring with the assistance of their team
Schools are encouraged to gather a team to help support the Site Champion’s efforts. There’s evidence that schools that have a team make more improvements than those that don’t. How often a team meets is dependent on the goals of the group and the availability of the team members.
The School Health Team can be:
- An existing team such as a wellness team, parent advisory group or leadership team
- A new team made up of teachers, administrators, parents, staff or students who share the vision of creating a healthier school environment
Recognition program
At Healthy Together, we believe in celebrating every step you take toward increased healthy eating and active living, big or small. There’s no need to wait until a goal is fully achieved before recognizing progress. Celebrate, then keep on going!
Our recognition program is designed to provide consistent standards for being a Healthy Together Recognized Site, and to move sites toward lasting change. There are 3 recognition levels, and each level has a theme.
Healthy Together recognition levels
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Bronze Level = Implementation
The Bronze Level is all about making changes in your daily practices and environment. This is done by implementing the 5 priority strategies, which:
- Takes the first step toward supporting healthy behaviors
- Makes it easy and natural for kids to make healthy choices
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Silver Level = Communication
The Silver Level is about communicating with families. It’s important to engage families as you change your daily practices and environment. When you bring families into the conversation, it:
- Allows them to be advocates
- Encourages them to role model the same practices at home
- Increases accountability
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Gold Level = Policy
The Gold Level is about putting the changes you’ve made into policy. This helps build a healthy environment that will last through the years. Setting a clear district wellness policy can help you:
- Ensure staff and parents understand the expectations around health and wellness
- Give staff consistent guidelines to refer to
- Provide children with a healthy environment
Our Partners
Our community partners include:
- Cabarrus Health Alliance
- Eat Smart, Move More York County
Gold Level schools:
- Ansonville Elementary School
- Lilesville Elementary School
- Morven Elementary School
- Peachland Polkton Elementary School
- Wadesboro Primary Scool
- Wadesboro Elementary School
Silver Level schools:
- Harris Road Middle School
Schools working toward recognition:
- Bethel Elementary School
- G.W. Carver Elementary School
- Pitt’s School Road Elementary School
- Rocky River Elementary School
- Woodrow Wilson Elementary School
Gold Level schools:
- Endy Elementary School
Schools working toward recognition:
- Aquadale Elementary School
- Badin Elementary School
- Central Elementary School
- East Albemarle Elementary School
- Norwood Elementary School
- Richfield Elementary School
Gold Level schools:
- Doby’s Bridge Elementary School
- Fort Mill Elementary School
- Gold Hill Elementary School
- Pleasant Knoll Elementary School
- Springfield Elementary School
Bronze Level schools:
- Sugar Creek Elementary School
Schools working toward recognition:
- Cherry Park Elementary School
- India Hook Elementary School
- Orchard Park Elementary School
- Riverview Elementary School
- Tega Cay Elementary School
Contact Us
Are you interested in bringing Healthy Together to your school? For more information, please send us an email.
Email Healthy Together