The academic setting has a significant influence on the well-being of children and teens. Effective school leadership is, therefore, essential in promoting a healthy school environment. This book, the first of its kind in Hong Kong, establishes the kind of leadership a health-promoting school needs to be successful. It explains the steps school leaders should take to promote health, beginning with an explanation of the link between health and education and then moving into a discussion of how schools can be transformed and what sort of leaders are required for such a transformation. These changes can be applied in individual classrooms and schools as well as more broadly across whole education systems.

The theoretical healthy school framework outlined in the main text by Dr Robin Cheung, a seasoned scholar-practitioner in the field of school health promotion, is complemented by success stories written from interviews conducted by Dr Cheung’s co-authors, which are included in the supplemental material of the book. These anecdotes and quotes from these stories enliven the text and narrate how principals in Hong Kong have transformed their schools into successful and thriving health-promoting educational settings. This volume draws particular attention to the role of leadership and management in promoting health and learning in educational and academic settings that will be of interest to school leaders, policy makers, and educators alike.

Leading Healthy and Thriving Schools in Hong Kong: Theory and Practice is the first book in the Healthy Settings Series, which focuses on the upstream, midstream, and downstream approaches for improving population health and reducing health inequity in various settings and contexts.