Taking the next step in child health care

Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — Montrose School District Re-1J moved from the planning stage to implementation of a school-based health clinic as the school board approved two matters for the project at Tuesday’s meeting.

For the past nine months, more than 20 community members from different health areas, including the school district, have been working to set up a school-based health clinic, which will be located at Northside Elementary School and opens next fall.

The center will provide full-time mental and physical health to all Montrose school district elementary and pre-school students and their siblings with a physician assistant and cultural-outreach coordinator available on site, district spokeswoman Linda Gann said.

“The center will be grant funded and/or supported by in-kind contribution from medical providers and partners,” she said.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, members unanimously approved an equality in health initiative grant from The Colorado Trust in the amount of $350,000 over five years. The board also approved an outreach-data processing grant-funded position for the center, which will be the cultural-outreach coordinator.

Now that the district has the board’s approval, the clinic’s committee is moving past the planning stage and working toward finding staff and securing partnerships.

The position for the cultural-outreach coordinator is open to district staff first and then advertised out into the community. Gann said they are looking for someone who is bilingual and understands the culture of the district’s demographics.

Partnering with the clinic will be The Center For Mental Health, Community Dental Clinic, Pediatrics Associates, Montrose County Health and Human Services, the Dolphin House, Hilltop Community Services, Rocky Mountain Youth and Montrose Memorial Hospital, Gann said.

“The main thing is being part of a team,” Jon Gordon, executive director for The Center for Mental Health, said. “These partnerships are absolutely critical if we are going to deal with the issues in our community.”

He said the center would be hiring a therapist to see kids and families who are referred through the school-based clinic.

“Our primary goal is outreach to the community, provide education and information,” Gann said. “The center will be a conduit or referral center for families that don’t have a medical home.”

Its primary target area is students and their families who are uninsured, under insured or who have other barriers preventing them from receiving health care, she said, and will have a “sliding fee scale.”

The clinic will assist families in applying for Medicaid and CHP+, a state assistance program for health care. It will also provide prevention and health education, acute care and dental care through its partnerships.

Northside was chosen as the location because of the demographics.

A survey, funded by a Colorado Department of Public Health grant, was distributed in both English and Spanish at Northside and Johnson elementary with 334 responses.

Survey results found a high percentage of parents at both schools didn’t have a medical home or medical insurance. Northside results found that most of those surveyed would use a school-based clinic, and from those results, it was chosen as the location.

There have been several other studies done by universities and research companies that demonstrate the benefits of a school-based clinic.

Those results show that a clinic can reduce inappropriate emergency room visits, reduce Medicaid expenditures and increase school attendance.

A study by Adol Health showed that children are more likely to visit the clinic for depression, suicide, nutrition and pregnancy prevention information.

Kay Alexander, executive director for the Dolphin House Child Advocacy Center, said the focus on prevention issues is a major component in its support.

“We see children at the Dolphin House who are certainly hurting because of one form of abuse or another,” she said. “We see this as an opportunity to do prevention on child abuse and also for children to identify problems that are going on in the home. In this day and age, we have to help our children develop skills to keep themselves safe.”

Gann said the committee hopes to have a plan for the facility in the next two weeks.

Contact Kati O’Hare via e-mail at katio@montrosepress.com