The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) School Health Program launched the Texas Coordinated School Health Partnership in 2024 to foster learning and collaboration in school health initiatives across the state.

The Partnership meets quarterly and focuses on identifying trends related to chronic diseases, physical activity, and nutrition within schools. Members work together to find evidence-based tools and resources that can positively influence school health policies, practices, programs, and services. This allows school health organizations to share their work, limit redundancy, and potentially create new relationships throughout the state.

The School Health Program envisions a Texas Coordinated School Health Partnership that:

• Includes a range of organizations working to engage and strengthen school health across the state.
• Identifies school health trends related to chronic disease, physical activity, and nutrition to align with the cooperative agreement workplan.
• Works collaboratively to locate evidence-based school health tools and resources to positively inform school health policies, practices, programs, and services.
• Increases collaboration and reach in information sharing to improve the overall health and education outcomes of students in Texas.
• Engages the members of the Partnership as a resource when providing professional development and technical assistance.

Partnership Membership

The Partnership has representation from each of the 10 Whole School Whole Community Whole Child (WSCC)model components. Members often contribute to more than one WSCC model component. WSCC components are listed below.

• Physical education and physical activity
• Nutrition environment and services
• Health education
• Social and emotional climate
• Physical environment
• Health services
• Counseling, psychological, and social services
• Employee wellness
• Community involvement
• Family engagement

If you’d like to become a member, please email the DSHS School Health Program at SchoolHealth@dshs.texas.gov.

During each of the partnership meetings, partners share their organization’s school health efforts. Partners do this by discussing current topics and trends that are important in school health. Members then utilize meeting discussions to drive presentation topics such as tobacco and vaping, youth opioid prevention, the importance of out-of-school activities, childhood obesity, and school wellness policies.