Outcomes of a Community-Driven Planning Process to Create Comprehensive Health and Wellness Plans in Rural Schools.

AIM (Assess, Identify, Make it happen) is a community-engaged, data-driven, strategic planning process for school districts to develop and implement comprehensive health and wellness plans (CHWPs) aligned with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model. AIM was facilitated in 21 rural school districts and an 81-item survey was administered to participants completing this process ( = 236). Those surveyed indicated that the benefits of AIM were more pronounced than challenges.

Strategies of youth engagement in health promotion: listening sessions, task force participation, surveys and other strategies.

Youth engagement is often purported as a critical dimension of health promotion for young people, but the strategies used to facilitate this engagement are seldom evaluated or studied. This study explored the strategies used to engage youth in a strategic planning process to develop comprehensive health and wellness plans in 28 US school districts. Participating school districts conducted listening sessions, administered anonymous surveys, included youth on a district task force, and employed other strategies to engage youth.

Assessing the Readiness of Rural Public Health Agencies for Facilitating a School-based Intervention.

Background: Partnerships are best positioned for success when the readiness of those engaged is assessed and discussed from the outset. Doing so requires an approach to readiness that is responsive to the particular context of the partnership.

Objectives: This study contributes to the topic of partnership readiness through a readiness assessment used with rural local public health agencies (LPHAs) to partner with a university research team on implementing a Kindergarten to 12th-grade school-based health intervention called Assess, Identify, Make it happen.

A Partnership Among Local Public Health Agencies, Elementary Schools, and a University to Address Childhood Obesity: A Scalable Model of the Assess, Identify, Make It Happen Process.

Background: One pathway to addressing childhood obesity is through implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) shown to promote nutrition and physical activity in K-12 school settings. Assess, Identify, Make it happen (AIM) is a strategic planning process to engage stakeholders in implementing EBPs in their K-12 schools. Local Public Health Agencies (LPHAs) are a potential partner to facilitate this process to a broader audience of rural school communities.