PASIG CITY -- The Department of Education (DepEd), through the Bureau of Learner Support Services-School Health Division (BLSS-SHD), in partnership with the Department of Health (DOH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Philippine Country Office, recently launched an online training for the Foundational Course on Adolescent Health.
With technical assistance from the Society of Adolescent Medicine, Inc. (SAMPI), Plan International Philippines, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the training is aimed to capacitate DepEd teaching and non-teaching personnel in adolescent development and services for adolescent learners.
“DepEd health personnel, our teachers and non-teaching personnel, who are our frontliners in schools, should always be ready to face adolescents in need of help no matter the circumstances,” BLSS-SHD Director Lope B. Santos III said.
The four-day foundational course is first being provided for all Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) focal persons from various school divisions and regional representatives across the country from January to April 2022. Subsequently, the training will be rolled out to schools between April to December 2022.
The activity coincides with the celebration of the International Adolescent Health Week on March 20-26, 2022, allowing primary care providers to support learners as they transition from childhood to adulthood, physically and mentally, amid a life shaped by a pandemic to becoming independent individuals as this year’s theme states.
The ARH Education is in support of DepEd’s commitment under R.A. 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, which mandates the institution to deliver a sustainable and age- and development-appropriate reproductive health education and training for educators to create an inclusive and integrated Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Education in formal, informal, and indigenous learning
The Adolescent Reproductive Health is one of the flagship programs under the Oplan Kalusugan sa DepEd, which is the convergence of DepEd’s school health and nutrition programs. Other programs under the OK sa DepEd are the WASH in Schools Program, the National Drug Education Program, School-Based Feeding Program, School Mental Health, and Medical, Dental, and Nursing Services. (DepEd)
