June Health Promotion Conference at NUI Galway to Focus on Building a Healthy Ireland

NUI Galway will host the 23^rd Annual Health Promotion Conference on Thursday, 13 June, and will focus on ‘Building a Healthy Ireland: Promoting Health and Wellbeing in Educational Settings’. The conference is co-hosted by the Health Promotion Research Centre at NUI Galway, the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Skills, the Health Service Executive, and the Association of Health Promotion Ireland.

The event aims to bring together policymakers, researchers and practitioners to critically discuss current and future directions for health and wellbeing in education. The conference programme comprises a mix of presentations, plenary lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. This event provides a platform for international and national experts to network and collaborate on implementation developments and challenges in relation to research, policy and practice developments for health and wellbeing in educational settings.

NUI Galway President, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, and Professor Margaret Barry, Global President of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education, will deliver the opening addresses for this event. International and national keynote addresses will include: Dr Eileen Scott, NHS Health Scotland; Anette Schulz, Schools for Health Europe Network; Orla McGowan, HSE Health and Wellbeing; and Deirdre McHugh, National Educational Psychological Service.

Anette Schulz, Schools for Health Europe Manager, commented: “Healthy life skills are not only taught in the family but in the person’s everyday life. In the effort to promote health and well-being among children and young people schools therefore play a vital role. Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (SHE) are delighted to be invited to the annual conference on health promotion in Ireland. This gives us the opportunity not only to highlight the importance of working with health and well-being in schools but also to share our perspectives on school health promotion.”

Professor Saoirse Nic Gabhainn, Head of the Discipline of Health Promotion at NUI Galway and Conference Chair, said: “We are very excited to welcome colleagues from all over Ireland and abroad to examine the theory, evidence-base and implementation of health promotion in educational settings. This is a crticial point in history of health promotion in education as we move towards a new European Strategy and the roll-out of the well-being framework in Irish schools. It is vital to ensure that these developments are built on our existing knowledge of what works for children and young people. We are bringing together experts from more than 20 institutes of higher education with those working in central government, NGOs and the community sector to share their learning and to debate, network and contribute to our shared future.”

For further information on the conference and programme details, visit https://nuigalwayhprc.clr.events/event/127927.

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