Center for Health and Health Care in Schools

Mission: The Center promotes child wellness and school success by partnering with communities to create collaborative solutions that bridge health and education so that kids are happy, healthy, and motivated to learn.

The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools (CHHCS) is a nonpartisan policy, resource and technical assistance center with a history of developing school-connected strategies for better health and education outcomes for children. CHHCS partners with foundations, government health and education agencies, school districts, and providers across the country to support their school-connected initiatives.

Located at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University, CHHCS applies its expertise in children’s health and education issues to build and sustain services and programs grounded in evidence of what works. Using a public health framework as a guide, CHHCS emphasizes the importance of prevention and the promotion of health, and the systemic factors in sustaining these approaches.

CHHCS specializes in researching and advancing effective school-connected programs, policies and systems as solutions for improving children’s overall health and school success. By school-connected, we are referring to preventive activities that are linked to the education system but are not necessarily delivered on site as school-based interventions.

To enhance the impact of school-connected efforts, CHHCS integrates health, education, and family systems by facilitating communication among key experts to drive collective action. Over time, CHHCS has developed a national network of leading stakeholders including researchers, practitioners, funders and policymakers that work across these areas.