Network - healthy kindergarten

Kindergarten influences the health of children and kindergarten teams. This place is primarily designed by the educators and carers, but also the maintainer and not to forget the parents make a significant contribution to the functioning kindergarten system. Political decisions also have a direct and indirect impact on kindergarten.

The "Healthy Kindergarten – Growing Together" program by the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) in co-operation with Styria vitalis & the Insurance company for public employees, railways and mining (bvaeb) supports kindergartens on the way to make health in kindergarten tangible for children, the kindergarten team and parents.

An important goal is to create a joint network "Healthy Kindergarten – Grow Together" in Styria.

aims

Goals of the network "Healthy Kindergarten – grow together" in Styria are:

kindergartens support in early childhood to lay the foundation for long-term health of the children
Pedagogues and supervisors in their work with the Strengthen children and health
parents reach as experts for their children and motivate, campaign for the health of their children and a healthy kindergarten
The importance of the health of the educators in the conservationists raise awareness
The high relevance of healthy framework conditions for and in kindergartens also with kindergarten maintainers and other kindergarten-relevant institutions (Politics, administration) to anchor
Building the network "Healthy kindergarten – growing together", consisting of "Healthy kindergartens", Speakers and cooperation partners

service

To achieve these goals, the Austrian Health Insurance Fund, Styria vitalis and bvaeb offer various support services for kindergartens. All kindergartens in all of Styria have the option of the program "Healthy kindergarten – growing together" to join as a network kindergarten.

Every year, a certain number of kindergartens are started as project kindergartens. Project kindergartens are individually advised and accompanied by experts for several years. In addition, Styria-wide and regional training courses for kindergarten teams are organized and offered, some of which can be implemented in cooperation with the Province of Styria, Department 6, Department of Child Education and Care.

funding

Thanks to the generous support from the funds “Common health goals from the framework pharmaceutical contract" for the (at that time) Styrian regional health insurance fund and the Healthy Fund Austria by the end of 2015 and by the province of Styria (health and education department) by the end of 2016 for Styria vitalis, which are part of the “Healthy Kindergarten – Growing Together” network" have been made available, a large network (consisting of over 170 kindergartens) has already been built from the original 9 project kindergartens.

To ensure that our network continues to grow and an even larger number of Styrian kindergartens can be supported with our offer, we will have grants from the Health Promotion Fund Styria available from 2016.

The following figure is intended to illustrate the role of the individual institutions in the "Healthy Kindergarten – Growing Together" network: