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Nova Scotia Health’s (NSH) announcement Thursday that funding will continue for the UpLift Partnership program in Nova Scotia schools was met with excitement by Dalhousie University researcher Dr. Sara Kirk.

“We found out probably about a month, six weeks ago that this was coming,” Kirk said in an interview late Thursday. “For the announcement to now be official is like, ‘Woo hoo’ and also ‘Phew.’ It’s both of those emotions.”

In a media release, Nova Scotia Health Public Health described UpLift as a “school-community-university partnership” supporting the health and learning of school-aged children. The program uses the World Health Organization’s Health Promoting Schools (HPS) approach.

“This evidence-based, whole-school approach integrates health into all aspects of school life to help students reach their full health and learning potential by enhancing policies, practices, design, and culture of schools,” the release said.

In addition to being a professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University, Kirk is also UpLift’s co-lead. She said children spend a lot of time in schools, and the environment is not necessarily healthy.

“We make them sit for long periods of time, put them under a lot of stress. The food environment isn’t always healthy…recess is often being cut and seen as not important, when it’s actually incredibly important for learning and mental health. And these are things that we have a lot of concern around lately,” Kirk said.

“What our research showed is if we do Health Promoting Schools properly, it actually has not only health benefits. It has academic benefits as well…To me it’s a no brainer. Healthy children learn better.”