Skills-based health education (SBHE) works to provide students with actionable skills that will support their health and wellness over the course of their lifetimes. While traditional health education focuses on knowledge acquisition, skills-based health education teaches students effective communication, proactive decision-making, and positive self-management skills that support long-term healthy behaviors.
Main Takeaways
- Skills-based health education is a hands-on approach that increases student engagement while offering lasting impact.
- Schools that offer SBHE can utilize the principles taught across subject areas, positively affecting the school community.
- SBHE can be integrated into existing health education curricula, making it easier for districts to prioritize knowledge acquisition and actionable skills.
Table of Contents
- What Is Skills-Based Health Education?
- Understanding the National Health Education Standards
- Benefits of Introducing Skills-Based Health Education to Your District Curriculum
- How to Implement Skills-Based Health Education in Your School District
- SBHE Lesson Plan Examples
- Common Challenges to Overcome When Implementing SBHE
- Case Study: Milwaukee Public Schools & Skills-Based Health
- Next Steps to Bring Skills-Based Health Education Programs to Your School District
What Is Skills-Based Health Education?
According to the World Health Organization, skills-based health education is “an approach to creating or maintaining healthy lifestyles and conditions through the development of knowledge, attitudes, and especially skills, using a variety of learning experiences, with an emphasis on participatory methods.” Rather than focusing on acquiring knowledge, skills-based health education works to empower students with skills they can put to use in their daily lives.
Research shows engaging health education provided by qualified, supported teachers — including skills-based health education — can reduce risky behaviors in adolescents, potentially decreasing substance use, tobacco use, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancy. SBHE may also increase help-seeking behaviors for students who need emotional or mental health support, as well as improve academic performance.
Many school districts across the United States are transitioning to a skills-based approach to health education, allowing students to both achieve health education standards and develop valuable real-world skills that will serve them for decades to come.
Understanding the National Health Education Standards
Created in 1995 and revised in 2007 and 2024, the National Health Education Standards were developed to provide a framework for effective, well-rounded in-classroom health education.
National Health Education Standards
| Standard | Description |
| Core Concepts | Students will understand age-appropriate essential health concepts to support their own health and the health of others. |
| Analyzing Influences | Students will be able to analyze and evaluate internal and external factors that influence health and well-being, including personal values, social norms, peer influences, media and technology influences, and family beliefs. |
| Accessing Information | Students will be able to determine whether a health resource is valid and utilize valid resources to support the well-being of themselves and others. |
| Interpersonal Communication | Students will be able to use communication skills, including effective self-expression and conflict resolution techniques, to support the health and wellness of themselves and others. |
| Decision Making | Students will be able to apply effective decision-making skills to maintain behaviors that support their wellness. |
| Goal Setting | Students will be able to create, assess, and re-create (if necessary) both short- and long-term goals that support their health and well-being. |
| Self-Management | Students will be able to develop and implement practices and behaviors that will support health and reduce risks of harm to themselves or others over the course of a lifetime. |
| Advocacy | Students will be able to identify, verbalize, and advocate for the needs of themselves and others at the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal levels. |
Benefits of Introducing Skills-Based Health Education to Your District Curriculum
For health educators, the challenge comes in helping students implement behaviors that support health and reduce risk in their daily lives. Implementing a skills-based health education program in your district can help students develop realistic tools they can use to support their well-being for years to come.
Positive Impact on Mental, Emotional, and Social Health
SBHE helps students build confidence as they gain a sense of agency over their decisions and their ability to communicate their choices with others. This, along with goal-setting and self-awareness, can foster an increased sense of confidence. Students engaged in SBHE curricula are also taught vital interpersonal skills, including teamwork, empathy, negotiation, and advocacy, creating a supportive classroom and school community that can benefit social health both on individual and systemic levels.
Skills Can Be Implemented Immediately
SBHE’s focus on skills over knowledge arms students with tools they can immediately implement to improve their lives. This is a stark contrast to traditional knowledge-based approaches, which left students with an overload of information that they often weren’t sure how to put to use in their lives. While knowledge acquisition is still an important part of health education, SBHE ensures that students know how to use the knowledge they acquire to support their well-being.
Increased Engagement and Retention
Skills-based health education curricula provide engaging opportunities (like small group discussions, role-playing, etc.) for students to immediately practice skills they’re learning in class. Research from Harvard shows that active learning both increases students’ confidence in class material and leads to higher retention rates.
Enhanced Communication and Relationship Skills
Social determinants of health inform many aspects of SBHE lessons, allowing teachers to help students practice health skills in situations similar to those they may encounter in day-to-day life. SBHE allows teachers to meet students where they’re at, considering the unique environmental and sociocultural factors that may shape challenges they’ll encounter in the real world. SBHE teaches students the communication and relationship skills they’ll need to make choices that support their well-being outside of the classroom.
Preparedness for Real-World Challenges
For students and adults alike, a gap often exists between knowing what we should do and what we actually choose to do. Many of us know that we should exercise, but whether we choose to hit the gym regularly is a different story. SBHE guides students through goal-setting processes that include action items, spurring them to bridge the gap between knowledge and action.
Development of Skills and Behaviors That Lead to Lifelong Health
Teachers using SBHE curricula recognize their unique ability to provide students with skills they’ll use for the reset of their lives, no matter what the future may bring. SBHE instructors don’t just provide students with health knowledge — they also empower students to make decisions and choose actions that support their well-being.
“We have found that using EVERFI programs in our district has given us the opportunity to provide education in many critical areas. These comprehensive, evidence-based programs have allowed us to empower our students with vital information that will last well beyond their school years.” – Assistant Superintendent, Leon County Schools, Florida
How to Implement Skills-Based Health Education in Your School District
Integrate SHBE Concepts Into Existing Curriculum
Skills-based health concepts can be integrated into your district’s existing health curriculum, allowing your teachers and students alike to adjust to SBHE methods. Incorporating skills-based health education curriculum lessons and practices into existing knowledge-focused lessons can create a seamless transition to SBHE. Creating space for educators to collaborate can help reduce the workload of lesson planning for skills-based health education. If resources allow, providing health educators with the opportunity to observe their peers implementing SBHE can help to spur ideas for their own classrooms.
Provide Professional Development for Educators
It’s key to provide health educators with professional development on how to effectively transition to a skills-based health education model. At EVERFI, we offer free professional development on a wide variety of topics, including how to include skills-based health education in your district’s current health education curriculum.
Foster a Whole-School Approach
SBHE doesn’t just benefit teachers and students in health classrooms — it can have a positive effect on the school and district as well. Providing health educators with a platform to discuss what’s happening in their classrooms can allow other teachers to benefit from the SBHE principles students are learning. For example, if a health teacher is focusing on teaching students conflict resolution skills, sharing the details of the conflict resolution process with other teachers can allow for a whole-building initiative to encourage healthy communication and peer relationship repair when students are in conflict. Cross-curricular reinforcement can also provide students with practice outside of their SBHE classroom, boosting health curriculum knowledge retention rates.
At EVERFI, we work to provide administrators with skills-based resources that support students in grades 4-12. Our team also works with leaders to align lessons to district curriculum maps, allowing teachers to lesson plan efficiently.
Adopt Interactive, Student-Centered Teaching Methods
A new teaching style can feel a little awkward for teachers and students alike, and adopting interactive, student-centered teaching methods can help to ease the growing pains that come with trying new lessons for the first time. Using social media, technology, and crafting health lessons based on student interests can all help to increase buy-in. It can be tricky to encourage students to share topics they’d like to learn about in health. Creating an anonymous suggestion box or email account can help students feel comfortable sharing health education-related needs. EVERFI’s in-person lessons work in tandem with our digital lessons to provide engaging, interactive skill reinforcement.
Develop Assessment Methods to Track Progress and Inform Approach
Understanding what’s working — and what’s not — is key when implementing new strategies in any subject area. EVERFI provides in-platform assessments to help educators understand student mastery and adjust lessons accordingly.
SBHE Lesson Plan Examples
Teachers don’t have to look far to find award-winning, standards-aligned lessons to teach skills-based health. They need to look no further than EVERFI’s free health & wellness resources.
EVERFI’s resource alignment guide provides teachers with 51 turnkey lessons mapped to the seven core skills of health literacy:
- Analyzing influences
- Accessing valid resources
- Interpersonal communication
- Decision-making
- Goal setting
- Self-management
- Advocacy.
Want to use one or all of lessons in the guide? Get yourself & students registered in under five minutes!
Common Challenges to Overcome When Implementing SBHE
As with any change, some hiccups are to be expected when implementing a skills-based health education program.
Some of the most common issues our school districts experience when making instructional changes, such as implementing skills-based health education programs, include:
- Limited funding and resources: Across the United States, school district budgets are limited. Finding an affordable, effective, skills-based health education curriculum can be a challenge.
- Time constraints with existing curricula: It can be hard to add a skills-based approach when a robust health curriculum already exists. Integrating skills-based lessons into existing health lessons can increase student engagement and learning outcomes without discarding existing curriculum.
- Resistance to change from educators, administrators, and/or parents:Parents, teachers, and administrators may feel apprehensive about students openly discussing certain health issues. Some may also feel concerned about changes in the way students are assessed.
- Difficulty in measuring outcomes: When shifting to a skills-based approach, teachers may need to change assessment methods. EVERFI provides educators with resources to effectively assess students, identifying gaps in learning to inform future instruction.
Case Study: Empowering Wellness with Milwaukee Public Schools
In Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), health education is more than a curriculum requirement — it’s a transformative experience that equips students wit the skills they need to thrive. Through a dynamic partnership with EVERFI and a district-wide commitment to whole-child development, MPS has become a model for implementing skills-based health education that is inclusive, data-driven, and deeply impactful.
A Strategic Vision for Student Wellness
Carolos Rodriguez, Health & PE Curriculum Specialist, states that MPS centers it’s approach with the clear goal “to increase the number of students receiving standards-based health education instruction.” This vision is brought to life through the district’s System of Wellness Instruction for Teachers & Teens (SWIFTT), a blended learning initiative that supports educators with tools, mentorship, and professional development.
EVERFI: A Catalyst for Skills-Based Learning
EVERFI’s digital platform plays a central role in MPS’s implementation. It offers interactive modules on topics like mental wellness, bullying prevention, and healthy relationships. These lessons are aligned with national standards and designed to build real-world competencies such as decision-making, emotional regulation, and self-advocacy.
Deandra Davis, an international teacher at Holmes School, shared how EVERFI transformed her classroom: “Each module starts with a pre-survey, helping me tailor lessons to my students’ needs. The structure—from definitions to coping strategies—makes it easy to teach and impactful for students”
Rachel Uy, a second-year teacher, echoed this: “EVERFI gives my students a calm, intentional space to learn. The offline and online options make it flexible, and the data helps me see where they need more support.”
Wellness Zones: Bridging Physical and Emotional Health
MPS has also innovated beyond the screen with its PE Wellness Zones, a strategy that integrates physical activity with emotional awareness. Gymnasiums are marked with color-coded zones—red for frustration, blue for sadness, green for calm, and yellow for excitement. Students engage in targeted physical activities like yoga or team-building exercises based on how they feel.
“The goal is for students to learn coping strategies they can use beyond the gym—at recess, at home, even with their families,” said Rodriguez. “We want them to say, ‘I see you’re stressed, Mom. I learned in PE that yoga helps me decompress.’”
Impact: Measurable Growth and Lasting Change
The results speak volumes. Pre- and post-assessment data show significant gains in student understanding across all EVERFI modules. For example, students demonstrated marked improvement in topics like mental wellness and alcohol prevention.
Moreover, the district’s mentorship and professional development programs have led to a teacher retention rate of over 90%. “Planning and preparation are major stressors,” Rodriguez noted. “We do the legwork so teachers can focus on instruction.”
Conclusion: A Culture of Care and Capability
Milwaukee Public Schools has created a culture where skills-based health education is not just taught—it’s lived. Through strategic partnerships, innovative practices, and a deep commitment to student and teacher well-being, MPS is showing what’s possible when education is rooted in empathy, equity, and empowerment.
As Davis put it best: “After today, there’s no going back.”
Next Steps to Bring Skills-Based Health Education Programs to Your School District
As a district administrator, you want to offer teachers and students effective, efficient curricula that support student growth. While pushing for change in your district can be trying, it’s often what’s necessary to take your classrooms to the next level.
At EVERFI, our health and wellness resources can help to remove barriers to offering a skills-based health education program to your students. We’d love to talk with you about how we can help you create programming that lets you teachers offer lessons that will support students for a lifetime. Explore our health and wellness resources, and feel free to reach out to us for more information.
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Amanda Berkey is a Pennsylvania-based writer and reporter with an M.S.Ed. in School and Mental Health Counseling. With 17 years of experience in education, she has taken on diverse roles in teaching, coaching, and administration.