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There is a need for rigorous research documenting the important role of school nurses in facilitating positive health outcomes among students. Poorly managed care can affect student absenteeism rates, which are associated with academic performance and school funding, and students in underresourced schools are at particularly higher risk of suffering chronic conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes) that necessitate proper care and management. The San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) Nurse Demonstration Project was developed as a five-year endeavor to expand school nursing and formally link school nurses to a school-based health clinic. The initiative provides for full-time school nurses at four elementary and middle schools in SJUSD, and a nurse practitioner at School Health Clinics of Santa Clara County. The objectives are to: (1) improve access to primary care and prevention services, specifically asthma and chronic condition management and (2) facilitate the establishment of a medical home for students. Evaluation of the project employs a mixed methods research design, including a logic model, an intervention and control study design (comparing outcome measures in the four demonstration schools with five “control” schools), parent, teacher, and school administrator feedback, systematic nurse reports, and quantitative analysis of school health and administrative data, including health conditions and absenteeism information. Key findings in Phase I of the project are discussed, including improvement in screening and referrals, follow-up care among students with asthma, and mean days absent due to illness. With increasing budget cuts to public schools, documenting the impact of full-time school nurses will remain crucial in leveraging support and resources for school health services. Findings of this project indicate that school nurses provide valuable services and could be a major player in providing and coordinating effective management and prevention of chronic disease among children.

Explains how school nurses in California have a much higher professional status than that of their counterparts in the UK. They have a defined career structure within schools, which also employ them, so that they have similar salaries, terms and conditions of employment to their schoolteacher colleagues. Describes how school nurses in the USA have developed their role over the past decade, so that they now play a significant role in health promotion and in voicing their professional opinion on issues that affect school‐age children. Emphasizes that school nurses in the UK would do well to follow a similar course of action.

The role of the school nurse has evolved. It has expanded from administering first aid and promoting hand washing to key participation in program planning for health and educational outcomes for the school-aged child. Nurses provide leadership in promoting a healthy and safe school environment, case management of chronically ill children, collaboration between family and school, and referral to essential community resources. Additionally, the school nurse is a valuable resource on the multidisciplinary special education team. The school nurse is the health care expert in the school and is in a unique position to meet the actual and potential needs of all students – including those with special needs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of school nursing in the USA in the early decades of the twentieth century, highlighting the linkages between schools and public health and the challenges nurses faced.

This historical essay examines the discussions about school nursing and school nurses’ descriptions of their work.

In the Progressive period, though the responsibilities of school nurse were never clearly defined, nurses quickly became accepted, respected members of the school, with few objecting to their practices. Nonetheless, nurses consistently faced financial complications that limited, and continue to limit, their effectiveness in schools and communities.

Few histories of school health have documented the critical role nurses have played and their important, although contested, position today. This paper points to the obstacles restricting the development of dynamic school nurse programs today.

Adolescent mental health issues are on the increase, in particular depression, which is now a major public health concern globally. Mental health education is important and young people’s awareness of mental health is potentially limited. This is one factor that creates barriers to seeking support. School nurses and educational professionals recognise that they do not necessarily have the required skill base to support emotional health concerns with young people. The purpose of this paper is to synthesise qualitative evidence related to the nurse’s role in supporting adolescents.

A literature review using a systematic approach was undertaken, predominantly through collection of primary qualitative research studies. In total, 22 published studies are included in this review, extracted from four databases – CINAHL, Embase, Medline and Scopus.

This review shows that awareness of mental health is needed early in adolescence, while at school, to encourage young people to access support and have knowledge of their own emotional health. The need for further mental health education and provision is asserted.

Young people benefit from someone who is accessible and familiar to them in schools so that they can access emotional support as and when needed. Careful involvement of families (including extended families) is noted. It is proposed that this role should be a mental health nurse role, who should be accessible within the school environment.

This paper is original and adds to existing knowledge that mental health challenges are increasing, and more needs to be done in schools to promote mental health and reduce the stigma associated with seeking support.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process and learning outcomes of peer collaboration in a Danish health developmental project in school health nursing. The paper explores how peer collaboration influences the school nurses' collaborative learning and competence development.

The article is based on data from a three‐year health educational development project at primary schools in Denmark. These data are observations from 12 reflective workshops with school nurses, two questionnaire surveys, and five focus group interviews with five of the six sub‐projects after the project was over. In the workshops, the questionnaire surveys and the focus group interviews the school nurses were asked to reflect on the developmental process, their collaboration, own and mutual pedagogical competence development.

Systematic peer collaboration between school nurses qualifies their learning and ability to reflect on practice, their communication with colleagues and children, and the development of new and innovative approaches to school health nursing. The introduction of peer collaboration, however, takes time and energy and it can be a challenge to introduce peer collaboration into a working culture in which school nurses traditionally work alone under prominent work and time pressures.

The study is explorative. Further research could explore the connection between collaborative learning among school nurses and the development of their competences in school health nursing.

The paper outlines how and why collaboration among school nurses should be introduced in a more systematic way into school health nursing.

The paper investigates the connection between informal educational activities for SNs and possible learning outcomes for practice. Specifically, the paper looks into different ways in which SNs collaborate and the findings contribute to new understandings of how SNs' practice can be organised in order to stimulate school nurses' participation and collaborative learning and increase the quality of school health nursing.

Reports on a detailed study of a school nursing service which has revealed the untapped value of the service and a generally poor understanding of what, precisely, school nurses do, and the nature of their skills and experience. Focuses on one aspect of this study: the changing nature of the school nursing role in health education and health promotion. Finds that school nurses have adjusted their practice to meet the changing nature of children’s health needs. They now increasingly work to health education and health promotion agendas and are acting in a health advisory role. Calls into question the need for universal health screening, particularly for older children, as the core activity of school nursing. Concludes that the service should in future be designated as being for “children of school age”, and that the range of sites where school nursing is delivered should be extended.

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of an understanding of how school nurses work in multiple spaces, supporting young people in relation to promoting and protecting their emotional and mental health and wellbeing. It is argued that young people’s emotional health needs are still as prevalent today as they were over 150 years ago, when Charles Dickens wrote about them in the novel Nicholas Nickleby.

Soja’s (1996) typology of spatial practice is applied to school nursing practice in an attempt to explore how different types of space influence how support is given to young people.

Examples are provided from previous research (Sherwin, 2016) of how Soja’s theory of Firstspace, Secondspace and Thirdspace can be identified within school nurses’ practice, thereby providing an understanding of how school nurses provide support to young people on an everyday basis. It is proposed that in an addition Fourthspace also exists and a new conceptual model of spatial practice is proposed.

School nurses have the potential to make a significant impact on preventing and protecting young people’s mental health. They provide valuable support to young people to enable them to cope with the complexities of their lives, yet relatively little is known about their everyday practice as this is an under-reported area of nursing. A new conceptual model is proposed to help provide an understanding of their practice.

This paper aims to identify organizational readiness for change towards adoption of a redefined role of the school nurse as a strategic option in the context of a health promoting school approach. This new role is consistent with planned change directed at life habits and life conditions.

A questionnaire based on a modified version of the organizational readiness for change (ORC) framework was e‐mailed to 122 top and middle managers (response rate of 74 percent) in 42 local health organizations in the Province of Quebec, Canada, during the fall of 2009.

In total, 90 percent of participants perceived the proposed role as a solution to fulfil their school health program needs, especially to plan and integrate health promotion projects. The lack of resources and nursing support emerged as factors hampering the capacity of school nurses to play such a role.

Additional implications of the ORC framework are needed in order to better address organizational readiness for complex changes in specific health‐related settings.

Access to information technology and the development of computer skills would help enhance this encompassing role in health promotion.

Findings have the potential to better inform health authorities regarding the new role of the school nurse as a strategic option in health promotion. This study also provides an application of the theoretical framework showing the need for additional empirical tests.

The number of adolescents experiencing pain is increasing. Pain has a major impact on several areas of daily living, such as function at school and school absenteeism, loss of appetite and socializing. One out of ten pupils in Norwegian schools is immigrants, and surveys have shown that immigrants suffer from poor health more often than the general population. The purpose of this study was to explore how school nurses and teachers experience pain in young immigrants in the school setting.

A qualitative design using focus group interviews was chosen for data collection. A total of 11 focus groups (17 school nurses and 25 teachers) consisting of school nurses and teachers in junior high schools (age: 13-16 years) in Southern Norway were conducted. Data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis.

School nurses and teachers experienced communication of pain with young immigrants as characterized by cultural differences and language problems. Immigrants waiting for residency permits experienced pain more often than others. They also experienced that young immigrants often were absent from school and used pain as an excuse for not participating in classes, but this was not the case at the special school for immigrants. During Ramadan, they experienced that immigrant pupils had an increase of pain, especially headaches.

Culture affects the assessment and management of pain and different strategies may assist school nurses and teachers in their encounter with young immigrants with pain. There is a need for education in cultural competence among teachers and school nurses.