Murray State University Paducah campus hosts annual Regional Wellness Summit

PADUCAH, KY (KFVS) - The second annual Regional Wellness Summit recently took place March 7 at the Murray State University Paducah campus.

The summit was a free event for teachers, school nurses, school administrators, health departments and community health educators.

The purpose of the summit was to help school districts and their community health coalitions to work together to create or strengthen their wellness policies as part of the coordinated school health program.

"Coordinated School Health programs require community involvement, which is an excellent opportunity for schools to collaborate with their local health coalitions," Dr. Miranda Terry, assistant professor and director of public and community health, department of applied health sciences at Murray State said. "We wanted to provide a platform to get the discussion started as well as provide resources and networking opportunities for the schools to create their school health advisory committees."

Terry serves on the board of directors for the Purchase Area Health Connections and chaired the committee.

Keynote speakers included Jamie Sparks, Kentucky coordinated school health director for the Kentucky Department of Education, and MeMe Perdue, Kentucky state coordinator for Action for Healthy Kids.

Sparks led a working group session on coordinated school health.

Nancy Gibson, assistant superintendent of district relations at Henderson County Schools, presented in this session about how to successfully implement the Coordinated Approach To Child Health (CATCH) program into each school, using her school as an example.

Perdue led a working group session on the School Health Index, using that information to create action plans to continuously improve the health outcomes of each school, and how to use that information for grant opportunities.

Approximately 90 attendees from all over the western side of Kentucky attended the summit.

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