Health education projects in Portuguese schools: perceptions of its implementation

Abstract

Children and young people need to be able to make responsible choices. This article aims to characterize the implementation of school projects focused on health promotion and education on students' learning and risk prevention in accordance with the perceptions of 14 school project coordinators, 13 school directors and 1 subdirector. Semi-structured interviews, individual and in pairs, were conducted implying 14 school clusters in Alentejo (Portugal). Five dimensions of analysis were considered: organization, community, ecological, psychosocial and curricular. From the results, a divergent scenario emerges. Participants report the existence of many and diverse activities involving different actors inside and outside schools, acknowledging positive outputs on students, on school climate and their families. However, they had difficulties in pointing specific evidence to sustain their perception. Monitoring and evaluation of the process is considered to be one of the major fragilities. Specific recommendations in alignment with eachdimension are delineated.