Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.A year after the first school-based health centers opened in Omaha, the initiative is being expanded to all students in the Omaha Public Schools who need an alternative route to basic health care.
In its first year the effort focused on helping students at the six schools where the clinics were housed and at 63 nearby schools, although kids from every Omaha ZIP code visited the centers.
Now officials with Building Bright Futures, the educational philanthropy organization behind the centers, wants to make it known that all OPS students and their siblings under age 18 — no matter where they live or go to school — are welcome at the centers.
"If you're in OPS and you're in need of health care and don't have any alternative health care, we're available to you," said John Cavanaugh, executive director of Building Bright Futures.
Nationwide, health clinics are being started in schools to take care of kids' basic health needs or address chronic health problems and keep the students in class.
"The whole program was designed not only to get kids healthy but to keep them in school, to keep them learning," said Dr. Debra Tomek, a medical adviser for Building Bright Futures.
The centers logged 2,245 visits by children last school year and hope to double that number this year. To ensure that the centers can handle more visits, officials are hiring more clinic workers, expanding the centers' services and extending hours.
In addition, officials plan to open their first center at an Omaha high school, Northwest High, early next year.
Last school year, 1,558 kids visited the centers, according to information provided by Building Bright Futures, which funds the centers and contracts with OneWorld Community Health Centers and Charles Drew Health Center to run the school-based clinics.
Creighton University Medical Center, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Children's Hospital & Medical Center also have been involved in planning and supporting the health centers.
All six of the health centers are in OPS buildings, but there have been talks with other districts about expanding the centers beyond OPS, Tomek said.
UNMC is evaluating how the health centers affected student attendance in the program's first year — their main purpose — and results are expected in a few months.
"Everyone is saying that it had a positive impact on attendance," said State Sen. Jeremy Nordquist, a senior adviser for Building Bright Futures. "Of course, longer term we're looking to see that it helps improve academic performance."
This school year, Building Bright Futures plans to:
» Provide the existing six centers with outreach specialists who will go into other OPS schools and spread the word about the clinics.
» Hire three more social workers to work at the six sites.
» Hire three more licensed mental health professionals to help students with mental and behavioral health problems. Three of the six centers already have mental health professionals.
For high school students, "so much of their pain is more emotional, behavioral," Tomek said.
By January, Building Bright Futures plans to open a health center at Northwest High School, 8204 Crown Point Ave.
OneWorld Community Health received a $191,453 federal grant to establish and equip that clinic. The money was included in the federal health care law.
It will be Building Bright Futures' first foray into a health clinic at a high school, which officials acknowledge is potentially more sensitive. A state law passed last year to legally define a school-based health center prohibits the centers from giving out any kind of contraceptive or advice related to them.
"We won't be doing anything related to contraceptives," Nordquist said.
But high school students have already been visiting the existing centers for such things as annual sports physicals. Though classes don't begin until Monday for most OPS students, the centers have been open since the beginning of August.
Recently at Spring Lake Elementary's health center in South Omaha, Maria Nevarez, 17, a senior at Omaha South High School, came in for a physical. Nevarez plans to participate in dance, soccer and softball this year.
"Let's have you take some big breaths," Colleen Murphy, a nurse practitioner, said while holding a stethoscope to Nevarez's chest.
Nevarez, whose family doesn't have health insurance, paid $10 for a physical at the health center. At a doctor's office, she said, a physical would have cost her $40.
The most convenient part, she said, is that "it's just down the street from your house."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1074, jonathon.braden@owh.com
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