National Assembly on School-Based Health Care

The National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC) is a membership organization that promotes and supports school-based health centers (SBHCs) to assure that all children and adolescents receive high quality, comprehensive health care. Their motto Bringing health care to schools for student success demonstrates their belief that school-based health centers greatly enhance access to health care for all school-aged children and youth.

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About

NASBHC was founded in 1995 by a group of people dedicated to growing the SBHC movement. Its office is located in Washington, DC and the 1708 SBHCs nationwide are located in 49 states.

NASBHC's vision is that all children and adolescents are healthy and achieving at their fullest potential.

Values

• Children and adolescents have the right to high quality, accessible, confidential, culturally competent, comprehensive health care.
• The school setting is a sensible, appropriate, and valuable site to deliver health care.
• School success and good health are inextricably linked and health and education partnerships are key to student success.
• Health care for children and adolescents should be interdisciplinary and comprehensive, with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
• Diversity among NASBHC's leadership, membership, staff, and volunteers is essential.
• Families are the best advocates for services that benefit children.
• SBHCs provide valuable health care and should be appropriately reimbursed.

SBHC services

According to NASBHC's 2004-2005 Census, the tenth count of SBHCs since 1986, 1708 known programs include school-based, mobile and linked programs. 1335 (78%) of known programs responded to the survey. Students in schools with SBHCs are predominantly minority and ethnic populations that have historically experienced health care access disparities. 69% of SBHCs report that more than half of their student population is eligible for the United States Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced lunch - a marker for underserved students.

Primary Care Services

The majority of SBHCs provide the basic tools of primary preventive care. The most common components in the SBHC scope of service are comprehensive health assessments, anticipatory guidance, vision and hearing screenings, immunizations, treatment of acute illness, laboratory services, and prescription services.

Health centers serving middle and high school aged students are more likely to offer abstinence counseling (76%) and provide on-site treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (62%, HIV/AIDS counseling (64%), and diagnostic services such as pregnancy testing (78%). More than 2/3 of SBHCs are prohibited from dispensing contraception - a policy determined most often by school district.

Mental Health Services

SBHCs offer a variety of on-site mental health and counseling services through several modalities, including individual, one-on-one counseling, student group counseling, family therapy, consultation, and case management. These services are more likely to be provided when the mental health professionals are included as center staff, although these services are also delivered by primary care staff.

Technical Assistance and Training

NASBHC strives to serve as the premiere professional development and information arm of the school-based health care field.

Mission

• Develop a technical assistance and training plan that addresses the needs of NASBHC members and the field at large.
• Provide professional development and continuing education opportunities for the inter-disciplinary members of the school-based health care team.
• Develop strategies for exchanging and disseminating technical assistance related information to, from, and among NASBHC centers and members.
• Meet the Center Advisory Board.
• Learn more about the Center!

Evaluation and Quality

NASBHC strives to foster critical thinking and the development of tools and data collection instruments to support sustainable, quality school-based health centers.

Mission

• Conduct and disseminate national research and evaluation of SBHCs.
• Facilitate national discussion regarding the definition of appropriate health, mental health, and education program and performance measures and outcomes for SBHCs.
• Develop and maintain a national evaluation agenda for SBHCs.

Advocacy

NASBHC has worked to get federal legislation authorizing SBHCs and also legislation that authorizes reimbursement of services provided by SBHCs under federal programs, including State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Medicaid. Several bills have been introduced in Congress, including the School-Based Health Clinic Establishment Act of 2007 (S. 600), The Healthy Schools Act of 2007, (S. 1669/H.R. 2870), and The School Mental Health Act of 2007.

A 2007 survey, conducted on behalf of The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, published by Lake Research Partners, indicated that 71% of voters support the idea of providing health care in schools. This support crosses racial and partisan lines.