Worcester East Middle School will be opening a new school health center. Photo/T&G Staff Christine Hochkeppel
WORCESTER – The School
Department, in collaboration with other local organizations, will be
opening a new school-based health center at Worcester East Middle School
next school year, adding to a growing list of health clinics at schools
across the city.
The new health center at Worcester East Middle
will require an estimated $150,000 renovation in the building over the
summer to secure licensure from the state, but Frances Anthes, president
and CEO of Family Health Center of Worcester, which will be helping to
operate the service, said organizers hope to be ready for the first day
of school on Aug. 28.
Worcester East Middle will be Family Health
Center’s seventh school-based health center in Worcester, joining
existing centers at South High Community School, Sullivan Middle School,
Elm Park Community School, Goddard School of Science &
Technology/University Park Campus School, Woodland Academy/Claremont
Academy, and Doherty Memorial High School.
Superintendent Maureen
Binienda could not be reached Wednesday, but in a statement provided by
her office said she is a “strong advocate and supporter” of the
school-based health center model.
“Regular access to medical care
keeps our students healthy and attending school on a regular basis,” she
said. “The new health center at Worcester East Middle will be a strong
asset to the district.”
Like other school-based health centers in
the city, the new clinic at Worcester East Middle will be staffed by a
nurse practitioner, Ms. Anthes said. The center will also have a patient
navigator and behavioral health specialist; all three positions will be
provided by Family Health Center.
Most of the funding to start
the program, meanwhile – about two-thirds of the total – is coming from
the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, which has included the
health center in a larger, five-year grant project called WorcesterHEARS
that is intended to address childhood trauma in the schools. The other
one-third of the funding is coming from city block grants, according to
Brian Allen, the district’s chief financial and operations officer.
Other
school officials connected to the project, including the school’s
principal, Rose Dawkins, could not be reached for comment. Mullen
Sawyer, executive director of the Oak Hill Community Development
Corporation that works to improve the Union Hill neighborhood where
Worcester East Middle is located, said the service is sorely needed in
the area.
“We’re really excited about it,” he said, noting the
neighborhood doesn’t have any other health centers nearby. “Getting
access to health care is critical.”
Worcester East Middle has the
highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students, at 66.5
percent, among the district’s four middle schools, according to state
data. While most of the surrounding neighborhood’s families have health
insurance, according to Mr. Sawyer, they tend to receive care through
emergency room visits – “we’re all better off when people focus on
preventative care first, rather than wait until it becomes a crisis,” he
said.
“It’s a heavy need area, in terms of access,” said Jan
Yost, executive director of the Health Foundation of Central
Massachusetts. For many students, a school-based health center is their
only chance to receive primary care, she added – “if they have to do it
at night, or any other time of the day, when they have to get
transportation to get there, it becomes really problematic.”
The
advantage of health centers compared to regular nurse’s offices, Ms.
Anthes said, is that they are licensed to practice medicine, and thus
can provide a wider range of services. Worcester East Middle School’s
clinic in particular will feature behavioral health services that are
particularly valuable in the middle school age range, Ms. Yost said.
In
addition to providing urgent medical care, most school health centers
“screen students for protective factors and behaviors that promote
feelings of confidence and self-worth,” according to the state’s
Department of Public Health, which oversees the school-based health
center program in Massachusetts. “They encourage students to get
involved in positive youth development activities that are known to
counter risk factors and offer protective value.”
Ms. Anthes said
officials involved with Worcester’s school health clinics have even
discussed opening up the centers to the general public – “it could be an
option” down the road, she said.
For now, however, Worcester East
Middle’s new health center, like other school health clinics in the
city run by Family Health Center, will only be open during school hours
to students.