School Health Programs: Building Capacity through Collaborative Partnerships
Abstract
GNR Public Health utilized CDC Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement: COVID-19 Public Health Workforce Development supplemental funding to develop and implement a collaborative School Health Program within a local Public Health District. The School Health Program was initially designed to establish, expand, train, and sustain a public health workforce to support jurisdictional COVID-19 prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives for school-based health programs. Program implementation now also includes non-COVID public health related activities that address needs within the school-aged population. The program was developed in the epidemiology division and is comprised of a registered nurse as program liaison, a school health epidemiologist, a COVID-19 contact tracer, and a data analyst. Focus areas for the team include ongoing COVID-19 response, communicable disease outbreak response, and enhancement of other school health related activities and training capacity. Program services are designed to meet the unique needs of students and families with an emphasis on striving to achieve health equity and considering underserved communities. Program efforts include collaboration with other service areas within the organization such as community health, immunization services, WIC, Children 1st, the Tuberculosis Prevention Program, and the Mobile Engagement Team. The resulting deliverables include direct services such as: participation in community vaccination programs; physical activity and nutrition education for children, parents, and school staff to address chronic disease prevention; participation in school and community health fairs; and provision of training for school nurses and other school staff on topics including Youth Mental Health First Aid, CPR/AED, immunization compliance, scoliosis screening, and infectious disease prevention, mitigation, and reporting. The School Health Program that was developed to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has been fully integrated into a highly-functioning, community-driven population health and epidemiology response program serving well over 1.1 million Georgia residents.
Keywords
School health, school-aged population, infection control, adolescent health
School Health Programs: Building Capacity through Collaborative Partnerships
GNR Public Health utilized CDC Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement: COVID-19 Public Health Workforce Development supplemental funding to develop and implement a collaborative School Health Program within a local Public Health District. The School Health Program was initially designed to establish, expand, train, and sustain a public health workforce to support jurisdictional COVID-19 prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives for school-based health programs. Program implementation now also includes non-COVID public health related activities that address needs within the school-aged population. The program was developed in the epidemiology division and is comprised of a registered nurse as program liaison, a school health epidemiologist, a COVID-19 contact tracer, and a data analyst. Focus areas for the team include ongoing COVID-19 response, communicable disease outbreak response, and enhancement of other school health related activities and training capacity. Program services are designed to meet the unique needs of students and families with an emphasis on striving to achieve health equity and considering underserved communities. Program efforts include collaboration with other service areas within the organization such as community health, immunization services, WIC, Children 1st, the Tuberculosis Prevention Program, and the Mobile Engagement Team. The resulting deliverables include direct services such as: participation in community vaccination programs; physical activity and nutrition education for children, parents, and school staff to address chronic disease prevention; participation in school and community health fairs; and provision of training for school nurses and other school staff on topics including Youth Mental Health First Aid, CPR/AED, immunization compliance, scoliosis screening, and infectious disease prevention, mitigation, and reporting. The School Health Program that was developed to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak has been fully integrated into a highly-functioning, community-driven population health and epidemiology response program serving well over 1.1 million Georgia residents.
