CATCH Michigan

CATCH is an acronym that stands for Coordinated Approach to Child Health. More than 15,000 schools and child care sites use CATCH’s evidence-based Whole Child wellness programs, reaching over 4 million PreK-12 students annually. For over 30 years, the CATCH platform has been proven to launch kids and communities towards healthier lifestyles. CATCH Global Foundation is committed to making the many evidence-based CATCH programs available to kids everywhere.

Within the evidence-based CATCH Program, the main resource wellness teams use to achieve coordination around health and wellness initiatives is the Coordination Kit. The Coordination Kit is not a curriculum. It is a roadmap designed to get an entire campus involved in the process of implementing a coordinated approach to building a whole child supportive school environment and a culture of health. It provides a framework, resources and a common language for talking about and reinforcing healthy behaviors and mindsets. The Coordination Kit features embedded, intentional schoolwide SEL culture building alongside healthy eating, physical activity and other positive health behavior adoption. Implementing the simple and doable activities in the Coordination Kit lays the foundation for healthy students, healthy families, healthy faculty & staff– a healthy school community.

The Whole Child Guided Journey is a unique training, implementation and support model for school wellness leaders and teams over the course of a school year. As a result of participating in the CATCH Whole Child Guided Journey, school wellness leaders and teams will have the knowledge, skills, confidence, ability and resources to coordinate, lead and sustain whole child culture building in their school communities.

There are minimal reporting requirements for participation in this grant-funded project. Evaluation does not include gathering student data.

• CATCH Champion survey
• Michigan Healthy School Action Tool (HSAT) school core module
• CATCH Digital Yearbook or HSAT success story

Whole Child Health and Wellness is a component of a school or district Continuous Quality Improvement Process. Through the CATCH Whole Child Guided Journey, CATCH Global Foundation provides consultation, coaching, training and resources customized to meet the needs of schools and districts as they work towards improving their overall Whole Child outcomes. All CATCH resources are available in the MiCIP Strategy Bank.

To begin, CATCH will engage districts in the Ready, Set, Let’s GO steps below to ensure that the Whole Child Guided Journey is meeting the needs of individual schools and districts.

• Ready: Conduct a needs assessment, asset map and/or data review to assess to identify district whole child priorities. A CATCH consultant can assist in this process if desired.
• Set: Design a Customized Whole Child Guided Journey. The main outcome of the CATCH Michigan program is Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community Culture and Climate Building & Sustainability. Based on identified district whole child priorities, districts can decide to include a specific focus area for their Whole Child Guided Journey
  • Health Education
  • Physical Education and Physical Activity
  • Social Emotional Learning

  Within the desired focus area, school or district personnel design their customized Whole Child Guided Journey from the menu of evidence-based CATCH curricula, resources, training and coaching support.

• Let’s Go! Get schools onboard
  • School administrator from each campus acknowledges a Program Agreement
  • School administrator identifies a Wellness Champion who convenes a Wellness Team at each campus
  • School or district champion schedules training sessions for the school year
  • School CATCH.org licenses are activated and school staff access CATCH curricula and resources
  • $500 school stipend issued after initial training and school champion check-in

**Please note that if schools or districts are using non-CATCH Health, PE and/or SEL curricula such as Michigan Model for Health, EPEC, or Trails, they are not required to opt into any CATCH curricula.**

All journeys start with the CATCH Coordination Kit featuring Michigan specific coordinated extensions and the Whole Child Leadership training and include the Family and Community Engagement asynchronous training. Districts can opt to add up to 3 customized training options and up to 2 CATCH curricular resources. A CATCH Consultant is available to help identify CATCH resources that will best support the needs of the school or district within each focus area.

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Basic Training

• Whole Child Leadership Training
  During this interactive virtual training, wellness team members learn how to create a school culture that teaches, incorporates, and reinforces healthy behaviors, physical literacy and emotional wellness, including effective leadership skills and strategies for achieving buy-in and coordination on the school campus.
• Family & Community Engagement Training
  During this asynchronous training, school wellness leaders learn how to Connect (build positive relationships and raise awareness), Engage (communicate and provide opportunities for participation/input), and Sustain (extend beyond school and home with community activities) for family and community engagement.

Customized Training Options

• The Language of CATCH: Building a Culture of Health
  This live, virtual training will help Wellness Champions introduce and leverage a common language about food choices, physical activity, and social-emotional competencies into instructional and non-instructional places and spaces throughout the school day. In this way, health message reinforcement and skills practice move beyond the walls of the classroom and/or gym and into the rest of the school building and community.
• Meaningful Movement and Health in the Classroom
  This live, virtual training helps prepare classroom teachers and other school staff to incorporate physical activity and health content into their regular routines and curriculum.
• PE Basics (Live in-person only)
  If we want children to make the decision to be physically active, we must provide enjoyable physical activity experiences that teach and encourage students to be active now and for a lifetime. CATCH PE is designed to promote children’s enjoyment of and participation in MVPA (Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity) during PE classes, recess and out of school time activities and recreation with family and friends. Teachers will learn the CATCH BASICS of PE instruction and management to maximize activity time, positive class management and culture building, and opportunities for students to practice a variety of standards based skills and knowledge.
• SEL & PE: A Perfect Match
  Physical education is an ideal platform to engage students in SEL. During this interactive virtual training, participants are provided with strategies and tools to seamlessly integrate SEL into their existing PE curriculum and practices.

• Seamless Recess
  Recess is one of the few non-instructional periods during the school day. That doesn’t mean students are not learning! Recess should provide students the opportunity to practice physical literacy skills and engage in physical activity and activities that promote social and emotional development. In this live virtual training, school personnel and leaders will be introduced to recess best practices and organizational tools to help make recess positive and productive for all.

• SEL Journeys Implementation Training
  Available in an asynchronous or live, virtual format, this training provides participants with foundational knowledge about social and emotional learning and how to effectively facilitate SEL Journeys lessons in their classroom.

• Supporting Students & Staff with SEL
  This live, virtual training provides educators with new ideas and strategies for addressing their own interpersonal needs, such as managing emotions and stress and building strong relationships. From there, learners will build upon their own growth to address student needs.

• Training: School wellness leaders engage in up to four training touchpoints over the course of a school year to build their knowledge, skills, confidence and ability to lead whole child culture building in their school communities. Training series can be customized to meet Whole Child needs of individual school districts and integrated into district professional development.
• Implementation: Dovetailed with each training, school wellness leaders will employ the CATCH cornerstone resource, the Whole Child Coordination Kit, to involve their entire campus in the process of implementing a coordinated approach to a whole child supportive school environment and a culture of health and wellness, including social emotional wellbeing.
• Support: A CATCH Guide will be there to support you every step of the way with regular check in’s and consultation.
• Culminating Project: Wellness leaders and teams will document their WCGJ with the CATCH Yearbook Portfolio. You can see CATCH in Action in WCGJ alumni schools here.

No, the CATCH Program is primarily focused on environmental and culture change through training and implementing the CATCH Coordination Kit, not on instruction. Of course, having a high quality physical education program and a comprehensive health education curriculum is a crucial component of a school that serves the whole child. Our belief is that once a school starts to embrace a culture of health and wellness with the CATCH program, it will be more likely to support this crucial instruction whether it uses CATCH resources or any other resources. Also, any health or PE instruction will be more impactful when it is supported by a school environment that values and reinforces a culture of health and wellness. The CATCH Program and Michigan Model or other health curricula and resources should be mutually reinforcing and beneficial.

The CATCH family of resources does include Physical Education, Health Education, and Social Emotional Learning components. Many schools use our component modules to enhance or flesh out their existing PE and health curricula.

No, the CATCH Coordination Kit includes just one basic student-facing lesson for each grade band: K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. The purpose of this lesson is to set the stage for the CATCH Program by introducing students to the Language of CATCH, a common language used by everyone in the school to talk about healthy eating and healthy behaviors and mindsets. Beyond that, schools are free to choose PE and health curricula that work best for them.

Yes, the CATCH resources and training have a cost associated just as any other school resource or service. Through our Michigan Health Endowment Fund grant , CATCH Global Foundation is able to provide the CATCH Program free of charge to most schools in school year 2022-23.

Yes, CATCH’s unique resource is the Coordination Kit that can bring structure, organization and resources for school wellness teams that are moving through other capacity building programs. In fact, many schools that have successfully engaged in CATCH Michigan had either graduated from the BHC program or were concurrently doing both programs. All of the champions at those schools reported that it was easy and seamless to combine and that CATCH was additive to the program and not redundant or competitive. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach to Child Health. As our name implies, CATCH is all about coordination amongst and between all stakeholders working towards the common goal of whole child school environments.