The clinics also bill Medicaid and private insurers, but some students aren’t insured, certain services aren’t covered, and clinics don’t bill for confidential services, such as sexual health care. State aid covers about half of the clinics’ annual operating costs, according to a 2021 state task force report. Yet funding remains a perennial challenge. Today, health clinics are as commonplace in Delaware’s public high schools as libraries and cafeterias. “If they don’t get it at school, they don’t get it.”ĭespite support, school clinics struggle to stay afloat “For our most vulnerable students, that might be their only care,” said Katy Stinchfield, director of behavioral health programs at the School-Based Health Alliance. In addition to primary care, such as check-ups and asthma management, about 1 in 5 school clinics provide dental care and half offer reproductive health services to teens, including pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections tests, according to a 2021 survey.īehavioral health is a major focus: 80% of clinics offer support for students struggling with anxiety, substance use, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health challenges. They also appear to improve student grades and attendance, and reduce disparities by making health care more accessible to Black, Hispanic, and students from low-income backgrounds. Researchers have found that school health clinics boost vaccination rates, reduce emergency room and hospital visits, and can lower rates of teen pregnancy and depression. Nemours Children’s Health, a nonprofit that operates pediatric hospitals and clinics, staffs it with nurse practitioners, social workers, and a psychologist. Housed in a converted classroom, it features an exam room, a counseling office, and a lab that can run urine, blood, and saliva tests. It launched in 2016, becoming Delaware’s first health clinic in a traditional elementary school. So when the district superintendent proposed opening a clinic at Eisenberg, Distler jumped at the idea. Distler believed that students’ untreated medical conditions and trauma contributed to the school’s attendance and discipline problems. Today, it is the only state to require a health center in every traditional public high school.īut when David Distler became principal of Eisenberg Elementary School in the Colonial School District about a decade ago, none of the state’s elementary schools had a health clinic. School clinics spread, bolstered by evidence they workĭelaware established its first school health clinic nearly 40 years ago, partly as a way to curb teen pregnancies. Now, as many schools buckle under the weight of those needs and some community providers cannot meet demand, on-campus health clinics are attracting new attention. “The mental health needs: It’s across districts, it’s across states, it’s across the country,” said Cheri Woodall, health and wellness supervisor in the Colonial School District, where Johnson’s daughter attends school. The vast majority offer behavioral health care, which is increasingly in demand as students’ mental health challenges mount. School-based health centers offer free services - from flu shots and physicals to contraceptive care and talk therapy - that students can access without need of insurance or a trip to the doctor’s office. Some 6.3 million students in more than 10,000 schools had access to the centers, according to the School-Based Health Alliance. Nationwide, nearly 2,600 health centers operated out of schools in 2017, the most recent year with available data - more than twice the number that existed two decades earlier.
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