It's that time of year again! Summer is coming to an end and students are heading back to school, which means Erie Family Health Center's School Based Health sites are buzzing with activity to help celebrate School Health Center Awareness Month!

This year, Erie Clemente, Erie Ryerson and Erie Henson School Based Health Centers participated in the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers' (ICSHC) back-to-school campaign, Health is Academic, which focused on the intersection between school health and education. The message of the Health is Academic campaign is simple: "Want to succeed in school? Visit your school health center!" The ICSHC wants to support administrators, teachers and families in ensuring their students are healthy and ready to learn. By helping schools work with teachers to keep students focused on academics, school health centers remove barriers to learning. 

As part of the celebration, all three Erie School Based Health Centers had students enrolled at the health center decorate and sign a cardboard cutout in the shape of a key to be submitted to the ICSHC.  This demonstrates how the health center is the key to the students' academic success. Erie Clemente and Ryerson students were also asked to write an essay on why Erie's school based health center is important to them. This year a student from Erie Ryerson School Based Health Center won and their essay will be presented to local legislators and staff of the governor. The Health is Academic Campaign not only helps engage students in the role of the health center at their schools, but also shows the impact of the clinics. "It is important for students to have an active role in their health centers to not only expand the centers but to demonstrate the important role school based health centers play in the lives of each patient," says Tiosha Goss, Coordinator for School Based Health. "This campaign helps show how the health centers directly impact the students."

Demonstrating the impact of student health centers is exceedingly important since Congress is working on health care reform negotiations through August and September. There are two priorities for school health centers: to create a program to help school based health centers continue to expand and to ensure they are reimbursed by Medicaid and CHIP. While there are 52 school health centers in the state of Illinois, there are over 60 Illinois communities that desire to have a school health center built in one of their schools. An increase to school health center programs will support existing school health centers and allow for the expansion of new school health centers across the state.