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Macro & Specific Policies
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Macro or specific policies are written statements describing the objectives, scope of actions, required practices or procedures, intended results, staff/unit responsibilities and monitoring/reporting procedures for an approach, program or intervention determined to be within the mandate of the organization. Policies are usually defined by a Minister who has been authorized by a law or regulation to do so, but can also be published as a specific law. Policies are established by publicly accountable ministries, agencies, local authorities, school boards or professional college/certification organizations. Macro or over-arching policies set requirements for broad system goals such as inclusion or equity or working with sectors such as health, social protection, and law enforcement through multi-component approaches such as healthy or safe schools as well addressing broad health, social and other issues through multi-intervention programs such as school food & nutrition, bullying prevention and others. Such policies should require coordinated actions at all levels across several systems, prioritize the needs of disadvantaged populations and define/plan for the funding and staffing needed. Specific policies on specific topics can require certain practices or procedures such as smoking bans in schools, regulating food served or sold in schools or requiring that employees report suspicions of child abuse. All policies should be reviewed by elected or appointed authorities, updated and disseminated regularly to employees and stakeholders and explained to students, parents and the public through a defined policy-making cycle.
Written policies should define the scope and purposes of interventions, multi-intervention programs and multi-component approaches. Policies should be implemented or maintained by organizational action plans or strategies outlining annual objectives and activities. Policies are different than declarations or consensus statements that describe goals, aspirations or shared visions or values but do not include required practices nor assign roles or responsibilities. Specific standards or procedures can be defined for the quality of care in school-based or school-linked health or other services, in the construction of schools or in specific school employee practices but are not suitable to prescribe outputs or outcomes for complex, multi-level processes engaging multiple stakeholders over several years. This summary was first posted in January 2021 as a "first draft" ..We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below:. Text
This summary was first posted in June 2012. Currently it has been posted as an "excerpt/adaptation", "first draft" or "revised draft" and "first or revised edition" version..We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below: Due to the length of Handbook Sections (similar to a book chapter) prepared for this web site and knowledge exchange program, we post these documents as separate documents. Click on this web link to access the draft or completed version on this topic. Come back to this page to post any comments or suggestions.
This summary was first posted in June 2012. Currently it has been posted as an "excerpt/adaptation", "first draft" or "revised draft" and "first or revised edition" version..We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below: Bibliography/Toolbox on
Key research, reports and resources on this topic are highlighted below. Many of the topics in this web site also have extensive bibliographies/toolboxes (BTs) published as separate documents. Click on this web link to access the full version of our Bibliography/Toolbox on this topic. These lists use our outline for these collections that we have developed over several years of curating these materials.
The following additional resources are posted on this web site or published by other credible sources. Please send any suggested additions to info@internationalschoolhealth.org |
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(The number of summaries completed or drafted in this section are listed below. Understand the Approach/ Program & Its Effectiveness in Different Contexts on Different Aspects of Learning, Health & Development or Populations
How to Implement, Maintain, Scale Up, Sustain, Build Capacity, Leverage to Support Core Components. How to integrate within Education Systems Use of Ecological/ Systems Approach Research Questions/KDE Agenda |
Writers, contributors, editors and presenters of the knowledge in these summaries include: