Welcome to the School Health for Children and Adolescents Specialization. My name is Dr. Daniel Nicholas, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, and I work at the Children's Hospital Colorado. I'm the lead instructor for this specialization. My team and I are delighted to offer you these four courses. These four courses are focused on creating a healthy school environment, and also identify and manage students physical, mental, social, and behavioral issues with the goal to position all students for scholastic success. Healthy kids are better learners. Since kids spend the majority of their day in the school environment, school is a great place to start promoting good health and students. We suggest you begin with the course, Managing Asthma, Allergies, Diabetes, and Seizures in School. In this course, you will meet Dr. Lauren Welsh and Karen Hecker, a school nurse at Children's Hospital Colorado. With this course, our effort is to assure that health for school age children, begins with identifying and treating common medical conditions in the school setting. Our discussion will also include anaphylaxis in connection with food allergies, along with a section on seizure disorders. In order for us to be able to help students who suffer from these conditions, it is imperative that we help you learn how to identify the symptoms of these conditions and understanding the diagnosing criteria. There may be many triggers associated with the conditions we discuss. We will cover some of the causes of these symptoms and how best to manage these conditions, and their symptoms in the school setting. Learning about the management of these common conditions in the context of the school setting, and how they are treated is the first and important step to support the best health of students and as a result, their opportunity to thrive academically. We will then move from purely medical conditions of the course to social and behavioral conditions. Since these are sometimes difficult to detect, we'll focus on those most commonly found in the school setting. ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is one of these most common conditions as our autism learning disorders and concussions. We will cover these more in depth in the related videos. In the managing ADHD, Autism, Learning Disabilities, and Concussion course, you will again meet Dr. Lauren Welsh, who will discuss ADHD and Concussion, and you will also meet Dr. Abigail Anglo and Dr. Caitlin Wash, who will discuss autism and learning disabilities. In this course, we will be using the same method of learning, how to identify the symptoms of aforementioned conditions, and better understanding the diagnosing criteria. Like the list of common medical conditions we talked about, there can be many triggers associated with social and behavioral conditions. We will cover some of the causes of these symptoms and how best to manage these conditions, and their symptoms in the school setting. We're so glad for your participation and willingness to learn about these social and behavioral conditions, with the potential result of improving the well being and academic success of students in your school setting. It is likely in your daily life, you've heard many topics that are tied to students mental health, such as bullying, suicide, and school violence. Public schools in the United States often take a multi-layered approach to promoting social emotional learning, and addressing students mental health needs. As you will learn in this course, schools focus on how students social, emotional, or mental health needs may affect their academic performance and relationships at school. Schools are less focused on medical or mental health diagnoses when deciding what supports students need. This course will give you the tools to understand how schools approach social emotional skill development, and promote student mental health. Then, the Providing Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Special Education course, focuses on providing social, emotional, behavioral, and special education services in school. In this course, you will meet two of our psychologists. Dr. Lisa Costello and Dr. Katherine Walcott, who will cover social emotional health in school age children. Social emotional health refers to how students form relationships and manage their emotions to succeed in school. Social emotional health is similar to mental health, and both terms will be used throughout the course. We hope you will take away information about how schools can promote social emotional learning, and positive mental health outcomes for all students. Finally, in Healthy Practices: Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Community, you meet Eve Cushman, a health educator from Children's Hospital Colorado. With her, you will learn about the fundamentals of creating a culture of health in the school environment. You will learn about the importance of physical activity, physical education and healthy eating, attendance, and keeping kids in school. You will hear about specific program partnerships, that are concrete examples of how this can happen, and how this is actually working in everyday life. You will also learn about comprehensive school physical activity plan, USDA, nutrition guidelines, templates for school wellness policies, and a host of other resources to guide you on your learning path about school health. Since kids spend the majority of their day in the school environment, this is a great place to start in promoting good health in students. Please join us in ensuring the health of children and adolescents, and giving them the best chance to be the best learners they can be.
