CATCH Michigan

CATCH is an acronym that stands for Coordinated Approach to Child Health. 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 school-wide 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 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.

Visit the Whole Child Guided Journey page for full details

• Training: School wellness leaders engage in 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. All of the trainings will be delivered virtually.
• 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 and nutrition education, vaping prevention, oral health, sun safety, and Social Emotional Learning components. Many schools use our component modules to enhance or flesh out their existing PE and health curricula. CATCH is not a comprehensive health education curriculum and thus would not replace or compete with the Michigan Model for Health.

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, we will be able to provide the CATCH Program free of charge to most schools over the course of the next two years.

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 of the pilot schools we worked with in school year 2020-21 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.