Healthy children perform better in school. Moving primary care health services into disadvantaged schools gives children access to care in an environment that is familiar and convenient. This allows children to be in school longer -- especially those with chronic illnesses such as asthma, which result in many absences -- improving the learning environment for all children.

School-Based Primary Care
A school-based health center, or SBHC, is the answer for most schools that want to provide primary care within the school. The first SBHC opened in 1970, and there are currently over 1,000 SBHCs around the country. The National Assembly on school-Based Health Care (NASBHC) was created in 1995 to promote accessible, quality school-based primary health care through interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts. The Foundation follows the NASBHC's guidelines for SBHCs, which include local needs and resource assessments, collaboration with the community, and integration of the center into the school health program as important components of any school-based health center.

Planning and Development
For a SBHC to be successful and sustainable, careful planning and development are needed. Before services in the school can be offered, the school should assess what the community's child health needs are by working with parents, local agencies, and other community members. In addition, the school should assess the current child health service system and investigate avenues of collaboration with local providers. These efforts will help give the center a better direction and generate needed community support.

Sustainability
Once a SBHC is running, sustaining the center requires the support of parents, educators, health care providers, policy makers, and the community in general. Evaluation of the centers is important to show the impact the center is having on the health of students and the learning environment in general. By sharing reports of progress and results with decision makers, the centers can more easily gain and retain financial and community support.

Developing School-Based Primary Health Care Services
To help schools address the primary care needs of their students, the Foundation will fund activities such as the following:

• Planning and development (through annual grant cycles) of school-based health services
• SBHC start-up projects in schools (through annual grant cycles)
• Evaluation of SBHCs in this region and collection of data about the effectiveness of SBHCs across the nation
• The sharing of progress and results to help generate and retain community support