Safe and Supportive School Environments

At a glance

  • Safe and supportive environments (SSEs) encourage students to be more engaged in their school life. SSEs also encourage students to feel connected to the adults in their lives—at school and at home.
  • Connecting students to their schools and families is protective; it can reduce students' risk for poor health.
A male and female students sitting and talking outside school building.

Overview

CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has created a data-proven approach that schools can use. The approach helps prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV, and unintended pregnancy among adolescents.

The approach includes quality health education, ways to connect students to health services, and safer and more supportive school environments.

Safe and supportive environments (SSEs)

Creating safe and supportive environments (SSE) emphasizes aspects of the school environment that encourage students to be more engaged in their school life and feel connected to important adults at school and at home.

Connecting students to their schools and families is an important protective factor that can reduce students' risk for HIV, STIs, and pregnancy. Protective factors such as feeling connected, help reduce substance use and mental health issues and help protect students from experiences of violence. These are behaviors and experiences that are associated with sexual risk and poor academic outcomes.

SSEs at school encourage students to be more engaged in their school life. SSEs also promote students' connection to important adults in their lives—at school and at home.

Did you know?‎

Promoting SSEs can be particularly helpful for students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+). LGBTQ+ youth, who are more likely to be bullied at school, may also lack family support at home.

Learn more

A group of students smiling and laughing.
Safe Supportive Environments
With safe environments, students are able to connect with supportive adults at school and home.

How promoting SSE works

Schools, families, and communities should work together to build a safe environment for youth at school and at home. Improving school environments involves:

School connectedness

  • This is students' belief that adults and peers in the school care about them and their learning.

Parental monitoring

  • This refers to parents' knowledge of adolescents' companions, whereabouts, and activities.
  • Parental monitoring includes enforcing rules, too—particularly about friends and dating.

Parent-adolescent communication

  • This refers to both general communication, and communication specifically about sex.

Keys to success‎

Schools can promote greater school connectedness by reinforcing positive behavior. Often teachers and staff do this through praise, and by establishing rules, routines, and expectations in the classroom.

Benefits of SSE

Studies show that protective practices like creating SSE can reduce adolescents' health risk behaviors related to STIs and HIV. These lowered health risk behaviors include:

  • Encouraging condom use and delaying sexual initiation.
  • Lowering the likelihood of substance use.
  • Lowering the likelihood of experiences of violence.
  • Lowering the likelihood of suicidal thoughts or attempts.
  • Lowering the likelihood of pregnancy.

Adolescent connections to family and school during middle and high school are also related to many positive outcomes in adulthood, including:

  • Fewer sexual partners and STI diagnoses.
  • Less emotional distress and suicidal ideation.
  • Lower likelihood of experiences of violence.
  • Less prescription drug misuse.
  • Higher likelihood of attending and graduating from college.

Promoting SSE in action

Schools can promote SSEs by:

  • Providing professional development for teachers—including those who teach sexual health education—on classroom management.
  • Providing professional development for all school staff on policies and practices that support youth who have been marginalized. This includes LGBTQ+ youth, youth with marginalized racial and ethnic identities, and youth with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
  • Setting up school-based positive youth development programs. These might include mentorship or service learning programs, or connecting students to these types of programs in their community.
  • Creating and enhancing student-led clubs that support LGBTQ+ students, often known as Genders and Sexualities Alliances (GSAs).
  • Implementing school-wide practices that support students' health and well-being, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS).
  • Implementing activities that support the health and well-being of school staff.
  • Identifying safe spaces in school where all students, including self-identified LGBTQ+ students, can receive support from school staff.
  • Sharing information with parents or other primary caregivers about positive parenting practices. These practices might include how to talk with adolescents, especially about sex.

Keys to success

When communicating with parents:

  • Find the best method (emails, letters, online portals) that suits the community.
  • Translate into other languages.

Spotlight‎

Creating safe and supportive environments is particularly important for LGBTQ+ students. There are now more schools with a GSA—up from 23% in 2008 to 48% in 2022.

More information

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Content Source:
Adolescent and School Health; National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)