Involving Children and Youth in Promoting Health Equity: A Partnership with the Elev8 Initiative in Alameda County's Most Disadvantaged Neighborhoods
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Investigator: Naomi Schapiro, RN, PhD, PNP
Sponsor: Atlantic Philanthropies
Location(s): United States
Description
The UCSF Elev8 Healthy Students & Families project was the beginning of an interprofessional academic-practice partnership that supported five middle school health centers located in medically underserved neighborhoods of Oakland, California. From 2011-2014, faculty from the UCSF Schools of Nursing and Dentistry collaborated with the Alameda County Center for Healthy Schools and Communities and partners in local Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), the Oakland Unified School District, and community-based nonprofit organizations to place advancedpractice nursing and dental clinical faculty and students in Elev8-supported School Health Centers (SHCs) for faculty practice, student clinical practicums and innovative quality improvement projects, population-level health screenings and other interprofessional service learning opportunities.
The goals of the project were to:
(1) provide high quality physical, mental and dental health services, case management and chronic disease prevention and care to youths attending Elev8 middle schools;
(2) engage UCSF students in interprofessional service learning opportunities including clinical practice, quality improvement and health education to youths and families;
(3) develop new models of financially sustainable and integrated health care service delivery in a school-based environment and lifelong learning opportunities for school-based providers.