About 160 people attended a School-Based Health Centers Retreat last week, discussing how partnership across agencies, school districts, organizations, and with community leaders can support the well-being of young people throughout King County.
School-based health centers began in 1989 as a pilot program at Rainier Beach High School to offer no-cost medical care to students. Now they extend throughout King County, including 36 clinics in elementary, middle, and high schools across eight school districts. In the 2023 to 2024 school year, 9,100 students were served by one of these clinics, constituting 42,300 visits. They are operated in partnership between Best Starts for Kids, the City of Seattle, Public Health – Seattle & King County, community partners, and school districts.
King County Council Member Teresa Mosqueda gave opening remarks at the retreat and highlighted how school-based health centers play a role in improving the social determinants of health in our region.
“We all know that a health insurance card – that plastic piece that is in your wallet hopefully if you are lucky enough in this country to have health insurance in this country – that card only determines 5, maybe 10 percent of your health outcomes. And the rest is all of the work that you do and that we should be doing in public policy to improve access to social determinants of health: Healthy, stable, affordable housing; healthy, accessible, nutritious food; making sure people have access to transportation that doesn’t require a car,” Mosqueda said. “…We can do this together by combining public policy and really thinking about every single investment and strategy that lifts up our community and invest in individuals.”
School-based health center provider panel describe their community-focused approach
At the retreat, a panel of school-based health workers, school district staff, and students, shared their perspectives and priorities.
Athziri Castro Diaz, a student leader at Highline High School, said that students bring unique needs and perspectives that need to be considered. Castro Diaz said that student leadership was essential to supporting the health of the student body.
“Inform the students and get them involved as much as possible,” she said.
Jeff Lam, principal of Cleveland STEM High School, shared that a large component of connecting students to health care resources was to establish open lines of communication with students.
“The most important thing I have done (in regards) to student voice is to talk to kids” Lam said. “The way I know what students are wanting and how they feel is to be in regular conversation with kids.”
