Resources

For parents:

The American Academy of Family Physicians operates the helpful website. All of the information has been written and reviewed by physicians and patient education professionals at the organization. The site includes reviews of websites, information on drugs and health conditions as well as stories on different aspects of healthy living.

The official website of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) offers general information related to child health or specific guidelines concerning pediatric issues. AAP is an organization of 60,000 pediatricians committed to the attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults.

Florida Hospital and MEDLINEplus direct you to information to help answer health questions. MEDLINEplus brings together, by health topic including “child and teen health,” authoritative information from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), other government, non-profit and other health-related organizations.

For more than a decade, Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women has been healing children from Central Florida and around the world. The hospital’s website provides links to plenty of health news and information for your children and entire family.

The Child Welfare League of America is the nation’s oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization. Committed to engaging people everywhere in promoting the well-being of children, youth, and their families, and protecting every child from harm, the organization’s website offers helpful information for parents and care givers on children’s health and related topics.

For youth:

BAM! Body and Mind is an online destination for kids created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Designed for kids 9-13 years old, BAM! Body and Mind gives them the information they need to make healthy lifestyle choices.

The 4girls Health website was created to help girls (ages 10-16) learn about health, growing up, and issues they may face. It focuses on health topics that girls are concerned about and helps motivate them to choose healthy behaviors by using positive, supportive, and non-threatening messages. The site gives girls reliable, useful information on the health issues they will face as they become young women and tips on handling relationships with family and friends, at school and at home.

BrainPOP is a website that features hundreds of educational topics covering Health along with English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Technology, all correlated to National Education Standards for Grades 5-8. That just means that it's stuff that kids will have to know. Well, some of it's just for fun. But most of it is both educational AND fun.

General Health

For parents and caregivers, getting ready for school each day means more than making sure kids have their backpacks, lunches and homework.

nurse photoIt’s also important to make sure the kids have their required immunizations, allergy shots, health physicals and dental checkups.

Good health is important because it will help children perform at their highest levels.

The school nurses can be partners in the process.

In addition to caring for sick children, school nurses throughout the year perform screenings such as vision, hearing and scoliosis screenings. Nurses—and teachers—also are constantly on the lookout for issues that may create barriers to learning, such as malnutrition, poverty and domestic abuse. They both work closely with CHILL mental health counselors on these issues.

In addition, nurses dispense medications. Parents and guardians need to remember to complete the Orange County Public Schools Medication Authorization forms for all student prescription- and over-the-counter medications, including inhalers. You can pick them up at the nurses’ offices.

Although many students already have a medical home, those who don’t, possibly because of a lack of health care insurance, can get help from the nurse practitioners who are based at Glenridge Middle School. These advanced-degree nurses are able to perform additional medical services such as immunizations, medical treatments and physicals and they are able to write prescriptions. Appointments are required.

For more information about these programs, please see the School Health section of the website. In addition, you can click on the links for the School Nursing Initiative and The Student Health Center brochures.