Tasmania’s leading not-for-profit health and wellness organisation St Lukes has announced it will fund the roll out of a locally developed, globally renowned child health literacy program in 10 Tasmanian independent schools.
As Health Literacy Month wraps up, St Lukes is calling on schools who want to be involved to raise their hands.
Health literacy involves a person's ability to find, understand, and use health information to make informed decisions. ‘HealthLit4Kids’ is an evidence-based initiative developed by Tasmanian experts Dr Rosie Nash and Associate Professor Shandell Elmer, under the umbrella of their HealthLit4Everyone organisation.
It supports primary schools to build the health literacy of staff and students by mapping each school community’s needs, and tailoring programs that lay a foundation for life-long health and wellbeing.
HealthLit4Kids has been included in three World Health Organisation reports as an exemplar for addressing chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
For the past three years St Lukes has been calling on the Tasmanian Government to fund the rollout of the program progressively across all primary schools statewide.
CEO Paul Lupo said cementing good health understanding and habits early in life was critical to St Lukes’ vision of making Tasmania the healthiest island on the planet.
“We’ve long campaigned to get government funding for this program in all 123 public primary schools across the state, and it hasn’t happened. We’ve also encouraged Rosie and her team to explore other avenues of funding, to get HealthLit4Kids out into the community,” Mr Lupo said.
“Now, St Lukes is proud to be stepping up to fund 10 school-based facilitators, focussing on independent schools which often do not have a school nurse.
“Education and health literacy are inextricably linked. We need to teach health in schools in a way that’s directly relevant to each cohort, so kids really understand and engage with their own health and wellbeing. Investing in health literacy at a young age will set our children up for life.”
HealthLit4Everyone has already secured funding to offer facilitator training to 20 school nurses based in Tasmanian public (DECYP) primary schools. Principals are encouraged to speak with their school nurses if they would like to implement the program in 2026.
St Lukes’ contribution of $50,000 is in addition to this and will support 10 school-based facilitators at independent schools.
Dr Nash said they aim to have 30 school facilitators (including some DECYP nurses) trained across the state by mid-next year.
“Health literacy is absolutely the bridge between health and education: we know that better health leads to improved educational attainment, and vice versa,” she said.
“Tasmania consistently has some of the worst health outcomes in the nation, with the highest rates of the chronic diseases that our program is proven to address. We see the greatest barriers to good health in lower socioeconomic, rural and regional areas.
“The funding from St Lukes will help us to target the program into these areas, empowering young people to be informed and make decisions about their health, and to build that into their lives.
“Not only will this improve the health of generations to come, but we’ve seen from our pilots to date that HealthLit4Kids motivates students to positively influence the health behaviour of their parents and siblings too. It has a real flow-on effect.”
Schools interested in implementing HealthLit4Kids via a funded facilitator or staff member can reach out to HealthLit4Everyone via healthlit4everyone.org.au until the end of November.
HealthLit4Everyone and St Lukes are continuing to advocate for the program to be funded in every Tasmanian school as part of the state government’s 20-year Preventative Health Strategy.