The Joint Consortium for School Health was established by provincial, territorial and federal governments to facilitate and initiate cooperation across the health and education sectors. The focus is on providing information and support to member governments, building system capacity for promoting health through school-based and school-linked programs and being a catalyst for collaborative activities and actions.

The members of the Consortium interpret "health" in the broadest sense of the word, so a wide variety of health, social and developmental issues are addressed. Member governments pursue a number of approaches and priorities in school health promotion, so there is no one model or strategy that the Consortium promotes over any other.

The Consortium reflects the declared commitment made by First Ministers in the 2004 Health Care Accord to work across sectors through healthy schools. The councils representing education and health ministers endorsed the initiative a few months later.

The JCSH Board of Directors is comprised of one deputy minister from each jurisdiction. The Management Committee is comprised of ADM's and other senior officials. Each province and territory has named a School Health Coordinator. The Public Health Agency of Canada acts as the lead contact for the federal government.

There is a small national Secretariat in Victoria, British Columbia.

BACKGROUND

In response to the Healthy Living Strategy being developed by Canada’s Health Ministers, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada approached the health sector to explore the possibility of forming an intergovernmental partnership and action plan to address a variety of health, social and learning related problems of school-aged children and youth. Based on the recommendations of a joint working group of deputy-ministers, the education and health ministers endorsed the formation of the Joint Consortium for School Health.

About the Consortium - a downloadable Backgrounder in PDF format.