This document is designed to help policy-makers, decision-makers, programme planners, development assistants, coordinators, members of the school community, community leaders, health care providers, and social workers address the broad range of factors that must be changed to prevent and reduce risky behaviours among school-aged children. It focuses on health promotion and on improvement of health, education and well-being in the school and the community. Its purpose is to strengthen efforts to help young people learn how to prevent HIV infection, and other STDs. The document contains concepts and strategies which could be applied to all countries. It will help in undertaking five major tasks: a) creating health public policy b) developing supportive environments c) reorienting health services d) developing personal skills e) mobilizing community action. There are 6 sections, each of which can be used for a specific purpose: section 2 and section 3 can be used to argue for HIV/STI prevention intervention in schools, section 4 creates a basis for local action, section 5 provides specific details about how to integrate HIV/AIDS/STI intervention, section 6 provides information for evaluating and improving efforts. The individual sections are: 1. Introduction 2. Convincing others that preventing HIV/STI and the related discrimination through schools is an urgent public health issue, 3 Convincing others that HIV prevention interventions in schools will really work 4. Planning interventions 5 Integrating HIV/STI prevention interventions within various components of school health programmes 6. Evaluation. In addition, this document can be used with the WHO document on Local Action: Creating Health-Promoting Schools, which provides practical guidance, tools and tips from around the world. Annex1: Ottawa charter for health promotion (1986) Annex 2: School curricula that work Annex 3: Interacting HIV/STI prevention in the school setting - a position paper (UNAIDS)