• home
  • store

ASCD Logo

  • ASCD.org
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Virtual Events
  • Navigate Applications
    • ASCD Activate
    • myTeachSource
    • PD In Focus
    • PD Online
    • Streaming Video
  • Help

    ASCD Customer Service

    Phone
    Monday through Friday
    8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

    1-800-933-ASCD (2723)

    Address
    1703 North Beauregard St.
    Alexandria, VA 22311-1714

    Complete Customer Service Details

  • Log In
ASCD Header Logo
Click to Search
  • Topics
    • Assessment and Grading
    • Building Racial Justice and Equity
    • Curriculum Design and Lesson Planning
    • Differentiated Instruction
    • Distance Learning
    • Instructional Leadership
    • Personalized Learning
    • Social-Emotional Learning
    • Browse All Topics
  • Books & Publications
    • Browse Books
    • New Books
    • Member Books
    • ASCD Arias
    • Quick Reference Guides
    • Education Update
    • ASCD Express
    • Newsletters
    • Meet the Authors
    • Write for ASCD
    • ASCD Books in Translation
  • Educational Leadership
    • Current Issue
    • Browse EL Archives
    • Digital EL
    • EL Podcast
    • Subscribe
    • Upcoming Themes
    • Write for EL
    • Tell Us About
    • Contact EL
  • Membership
    • Benefits
    • Team Memberships
    • Member-Only Webinars
    • Communities
  • Virtual Events
    • Webinars
    • Symposiums
    • Leadership Summit
    • PreK and K Conference
    • Annual Conference
    • Exhibit with Us
  • Professional Learning
    • ASCD Activate
    • PD Online Courses
    • PD In Focus
    • ASCD myTeachSource
    • On-Site & Virtual PD
    • Success Stories
    • Request an ASCD Speaker
    • Streaming Videos
    • White Papers
    • Emerging Leaders
  • Main
  • WSCC Model
  • FAQs
  • Get Started
  • Global School Health
  • Healthy School Communities

Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child

WSCC Model Health and education affect individuals, society, and the economy and, as such, must work together whenever possible. Schools are a perfect setting for this collaboration. Schools are one of the most efficient systems for reaching children and youth to provide health services and programs, as approximately 95 percent of all U.S. children and youth attend school. At the same time, integrating health services and programs more deeply into the day-to-day life of schools and students represents an untapped tool for raising academic achievement and improving learning.

Learn why we need a collaborative approach (PDF)

View examples and ideas for implementation (PDF)

Review the 10 school health components

Read about the model in the Journal of School Health

Learn about incorporating health and wellness into school improvement plans (PDF)

Help leaders leverage assets to better design and implement the WSCC Model with the Healthy Schools Toolkit

Learn about the range of tools focused on WSCC implementation developed by the Collaboratory on School and Child Health at University of Connecticut

The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model combines and builds on elements of the traditional coordinated school health approach and the whole child framework by

  • Responding to the call for greater alignment, integration, and collaboration between education and health to improve each child's cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development.
  • Incorporating the components of a coordinated school health program around the tenets of a whole child approach to education.
  • Providing a framework to address the symbiotic relationship between learning and health.

The WSCC Model is ASCD's Whole Child approach, but takes a more specific health and wellbeing focus. The WSCC Model highlights the School Health Components which every school should have to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of their students, staff and environment. All of the School Health Components are present amongst the Indicators of the Healthy and Safe Tenets, but by using the WSCC Model, schools, districts, and communities are able to highlight these areas and direct more attention towards them.

The focus of the WSCC model is an ecological approach that is directed at the whole school, with the school in turn drawing its resources and influences from the whole community and serving to address the needs of the whole child. ASCD and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encourage use of the model as a framework for improving students' learning and health in our nation's schools.

A Collaborative Approach to Learning and Health

For the past decade, ASCD has worked on strengthening the links between learning and health—whether through healthy school communities or its Whole Child approach. These two essential sectors must align and work collaboratively if we are to truly support students and their growth and learning. If health and social service providers and schools are serving the same students in the same location and for the same needs, it makes sense to work together.

In 1987, noted school health experts Diane Allensworth and Lloyd Kolbe introduced the coordinated school health model in which school health is illustrated as a necessary foundation for not only healthy students, but also healthy and effective schools. And although this has been a well-established, easily understood model for the past two decades, it unfortunately hasn't had the effect inside education circles as its potential held.

In 2011, ASCD published The Healthy School Communities Model: Aligning Health and Education in the School Setting (PDF) and asked for a paradigm shift in how learning and health are viewed. In 2013, ASCD and the CDC convened leaders from the fields of health, public health, education, and school health to develop the next evolution of school health to ensure that the health of the student, the teacher, and the school are taken seriously by educators and, in particular, by those involved in the school improvement process. The result is the 2014 launch of the WSCC model.

Download Resources

  • Hi-resolution image of the WSCC model
  • WSCC model poster (PDF)
  • WSCC model poster en español (PDF)
  • PowerPoint presentation on the WSCC model
  • A guide on local health department and school partnerships (PDF)
  • CDC WSCC fact sheet

Contact Us

Please use the following form to contact us with questions about the WSCC model and its implementation.

 

ASCD Express

Ideas from the Field

Subscribe to ASCD Express, our free email newsletter, to have practical, actionable strategies and information delivered to your email inbox twice a month.

Subscribe Now

Permissions

ASCD respects intellectual property rights and adheres to the laws governing them. Learn more about our permissions policy and submit your request online.

  • Policies and Requests
  • Translations Rights
  • Books in Translation

  • ASCD on Facebook (External Link)
  • ASCD on Twitter (External Link)
  • ASCD on Pinterest (External Link)
  • ASCD on Instagram (External Link)
  • ASCD on LinkedIn (External Link)
  • ASCD on Youtube (External Link)

About ASCD

  • About Us
  • Contact Us / Help
  • Governance
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • News & Media
  • Government Relations
  • Whole Child

Get Involved

  • Membership
  • Educator Advocates
  • Affiliates
  • Emerging Leaders
  • Connected Communities
  • Student Chapters
  • Professional Interest Communities

Partner with Us

  • Partners
  • ASCD Job Ramp
  • Advertisers
  • Sponsors & Exhibitors
  • Distributors
ASCD Logo

1703 North Beauregard St.
Alexandria, VA 22311-1714

MISSION: ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

© 2021 ASCD. All Rights Reserved.