Resiliency of the Comprehensive School Health Approach in Canadian Schools Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Comprehensive School Health (CSH) is a whole school approach to promote healthy school communities. The objective of this study was to understand if and how schools that take a CSH approach (i.e., APPLE Schools) sustained and adapted their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This qualitative study highlighted teaching staff and principals' perspectives to showcase the ways that health and wellbeing supports through the CSH approach helped to mitigate the COVID-19 impacts on schools. This article describes three themes that exemplified how healthy school communities were promoted and maintained during the COVID-19 pandemic: wellness was already a priority, purposeful efforts to continue health promotion, and recognition that (a culture of) wellness extends beyond the school.

CSH approaches with supportive environments, healthy living practices, partnerships, and overarching district policies offer a structure and pathway to guide efforts in schools during times of adversity and support whole school communities. The CSH approach had a beneficial impact in urban, rural, and remote school contexts.

Schools with well-established priorities of wellness carried CSH practices throughout the pandemic. This ensured student and staff wellness was at the forefront of health promoting efforts.