Empowering children, teachers and parents through HealthLit4Kids in schools: parent views of student engagement

Promoting healthy behaviours during childhood positively influences attitudes and behaviours in later life. The HealthLit4Kids program builds health literacy in the primary school environment, engaging and building capacity among students, teachers, parents and their local community. Currently implemented in five Tasmanian schools, HealthLit4Kids is embedded throughout the curriculum and is teacher-driven. Empowerment of children has been demonstrated through: positive health-related behaviour change reported by parents; communication of information from children to parents; and an increase in children’s capacity to understand, communicate and act on health-related knowledge. This presentation will discuss the HealthLit4Kids program and children’s engagement in health learning as viewed by parents. The knowledge transfer from school to home exemplifies distributed health literacy whereby health literacy skills and practices are distributed among social networks.