Children and young people are happy and healthy
School-Based Health Services (SBHS) provide free access to primary health care, including mental health, for students from Year 9 in low decile secondary schools. Students can either go to a health professional in their school, or be referred to youth health services, child youth mental health services, or their own doctor. The initiative includes early intervention, electronic wellbeing assessments, and funding to upskill the nursing workforce to meet the needs of young people.
Budget 2018 funding extended School-Based Health Services to all decile 4 secondary schools. Budget 2019 provided further funding to enhance these services, beginning with expansion to all decile 5 secondary schools and consolidating the existing programme. Around 96,700 students at nearly 300 decile 1 to 5 secondary schools can now access SBHS.
Sector, DHB and independent evaluation advisory groups have been established.
Development and implementation of evaluation, quality, monitoring and reporting frameworks, will inform improvement and standardisation of the 'Year 9 Health Check'.
More information is available on the Ministry of Health website