Building Bridges and Creating Synergies for Health

Projects that aim to encourage healthy lifestyles among children or adolescents require a multilateral approach that targets values, beliefs, and attitudes. This kind of influence requires close well-planned cooperation between families, schools, peers, and youth organizations. The distribution of roles and tasks – as well as efficient communication as an element of good cooperation, partnerships, networking, and synergy – becomes a key determinant of a project’s success and the maintenance of children’s behaviour. The aim of this article is to clarify the concepts and notions connected to synergy and partnerships focusing on health, as well as to point out the measuring tools which could be usefull in this area, and also to present examples of projects that serve as international best practices of health target synergy for the child and adolescent population.