Although parents do have primary responsibility for providing the care and guidance of their children bee: use of the complex and interdependent nature of our society, the parents’ care must be supplemented by adequate community resources.
Such resources as education health protection, medical care, social services, sanitary and safe environmental to some extent housing have been accepted as community responsibilities. Some children for various reasons are denied opportunities for healthy growth and development within the family and community the reasons are the absence of one or both parents because of death, desertion, divorce or physical or mental illness, poverty insecurities due to loss of income, demoralizing neighborhood influences etc.
The responsibility of the community is to collect the facts—facts about condition affecting children favorably or adversely, facts about the number of children in the community in difficulty and what these difficulties are, Facts about what is required to correct the conditions and to work towards a common goal of protecting the healthy growth and wellbeing of the children.
Regarding the community cooperation for the physical well being of the children the Secondary Education Commission, 1952, emphasized “that the whole concept of the duties of the school should be enlarged by including in it various forms of fruitful cooperation with the community.”
ADVERTISEMENTS:
There are various fields in which the school can serve the community and plenty of opportunities in which the community can cooperate with the school. It is important to remember that in regard to health and the care of the children, the activities of the school should be extended to their homes, neighborhood and to the community as a whole. Because the health of the school children is determined not only during the hours spent at school but even more so during the time spent at home and in the neighborhood of the home.
If the school neglects the home and community factors, the outside influences may prevent many of the beneficial effects of the schools endeavour to improve the health of the child. Though the schools cannot directly control the conditions of the home and community, yet they can influence them by educating both the pupils and their parents with the cooperation of the physicians and the health authorities for better appreciations and improvement of health conditions.
By improving the conditions of sanitation in snail selected locality the school can directly influence both the pupils and parents and in fact the whole community for the better health education. This approach to the maintenance of school children’s health may appear impracticable at first sight, yet clear appreciations of the factors involved and a better co-ordination of the agencies, concerned with the promotion of health will show that the adoption of such measures can produce tangible results within a reasonable time
However, the health programme in the school has to be supplemented by promoting healthful condition in the home and community in the following direction.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Home:
(i) A happy and restful place;
(ii) Provision for adequate light and fresh air and must be well ventilated;
(iii) Good sanitary arrangement;
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(iv) Healthy surroundings and peaceful atmosphere for preserving mental health;
(v) Health consciousness among the family members;
Community:
(i) Provision for physical well being of the members of the community through play grounds, parks, different kinds of club etc.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(ii) Good sanitation and drainage system, drinking water supply, supervision of cooking of food, preservation of food etc.
(iii) Provision for leisure and the recreation;
(iv) Health drive programmes for combating the epidemic and contagious diseases;
(v) In general raising of the local health standards;
ADVERTISEMENTS:
All these agencies—School, Home and the Community must combine their efforts for good programme for health education.