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National Health Center Week 2016: August 7 - 13!
This year's National Health Center Week's theme is "Celebrating America's Health Centers: Innovators in Community Health," and it's almost time to celebrate! National Health Center Week exists to promote community pride for the hard work community health centers accomplish every day, as well as improve the visibility of community, migrant, and homeless/public housing centers. The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) has sponsored National Health Center Week for over 30 years and encourages health centers to coordinate events and activities to match the theme of the week. This year, NACHC wants to make sure health centers celebrate the fact that they currently serve over 24 million Americans at more than 9,000 delivery sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories. NACHC has highlighted Thursday, August 11th as Farmworker Health Day, so be sure to plan events accordingly to celebrate the migrant and seasonal agricultural worker population. As in years past, there will be a National Health Center Week Picture and Video Contest, where health centers are encouraged to creatively promote national attention for their specific organizations. Health centers can submit photos and videos to the contest throughout the month of August, and voting will take place from Tuesday, September 6th until Friday, September 9th; winners will be announced on Monday, September 12th. To learn more about the Photo and Video Contest, click here. To view NACHC's list of Health Center Week events and learn about how you can participate, click here. |
Summer Food Service Program
During the school year, low-income families can depend on schools to provide free meals to their kids. But what happens during the summertime, when school's out and parents aren't always able to provide meals for their children? The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a  federally-funded program led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides kids and teenagers (18 and younger) in low-income areas with free meals during the summertime when school is not in session. At a time when national obesity rates are higher than ever and diseases rooted in poor nutrition are rampant among migrant and seasonal agricultural worker patients, it's important to ensure that nutritious meals--especially free ones--are promoted and taken advantage of as much as possible. The SFSP works via state-agencies that communicate with the USDA and then partner with sponsors (such as schools, local government agencies, camps, etc.) who manage the program and get reimbursed by the government. Sponsors can run multiple sites, but all sites are located in the community where children can receive meals in a safe and supervised environment. There are many ways those who work in the health center community can promote and get involved with the SFSP: contact you state agency to see if you can become a site, promote the program with flyers, or volunteer at sites to serve food or organize activities to go alongside meals. To find sites in your community by using an interactive map, click here. To learn more about the SFSP program and see how you can help, click here; to watch the program's promotional video, click here.
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Performance Measure Tools from the National Center for Farmworker Health
Feeling overwhelmed as you try to keep track of your clinical performance measures and make sure all of them receive equal attention, on top of day-to-day work? The National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH) has a collection of useful, bilingual tools to help you meet your goals with ease.  Their Quality Health Care Overview tool is a resource that can help you introduce new and existing patients into your health center as well as reiterate what kind of information needs to be tracked to ensure quality care. To view the English version of this tool, click here; to view the Spanish version, click here. The NCFH has also developed an interactive tool to help patients keep their diabetes under control by providing self management strategies. To view the English version of the interactive tool, click here; to view the Spanish version, click here. Finally, the NCFH has created a colorectal cancer screening digital story tool, which is narrated in Spanish and includes English subtitles. The tool educates patients about the types of colorectal cancer screening tests available and explains why getting screened is important. This tool is especially useful since many patients automatically rule out colorectal cancer screening tests due to discomfort. To watch the digital story, click here. To visit the NCFH's website and browse other resources, click here.
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Summer Zika Update and the Migrant Connection
Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) recently launched a new Zika virus information webpage to keep health providers and practitioners who work in the migrant health community updated on changes or newly released information. MCN notes that for multiple reasons, "migrants may warrant greater attention in the exam room" when it comes to Zika virus. One obvious reason the Zika virus is especially pertinent for the migrant community is that many migrant patients are coming to the U.S. from places where the Zika virus is extremely prevalent, like South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. MCN also suggests that migrant patients might have missed education opportunities about the Zika virus due to travelling for long periods of time, or because of language and cultural barriers. Moreover, because migrant patients travel for long periods of time, they may not be able to receive timely care. In a recent Farmworker Justice blog post, which was written by MCN, the author highlights that if the Zika virus does indeed reach the U.S. as summer temperatures rise, the migrant agricultural population will be especially susceptible to Zika because they spend a lot of time outside where mosquitoes live and sometimes do not have access to homes with window screens and doors. To read the Farmworker Justice blog post, click here. To visit MCN's new Zika information page, click here.
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Outreach Resource Corner
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health has updated their website to include new resources and data about the health status of racial and ethnic minority men. Click here to visit the website.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health released a blog post that features a HRSA-funded health center that is participating in a Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Pilot Project. The post offers advice for providers to improve health and safety outcomes for patients affected by IPV. Click here to read the blog post.
Rural Health Information Hub developed evidence-based, step-by-step, guides to help rural health centers with pressing topics like obesity prevention, mental health and substance abuse, and care coordination. Click here to view the guides.
Practical Playbook released an eight-part podcast series for primary care clinicians that examines at the difference between individual and population health. Click here to learn more and listen to the different episodes.
National Center for Farmworker Health just launched a new website for the Ag Worker Access 2020 campaign, which aims to serve no less than 2 million agricultural workers and their dependents nation-wide by 2020. Click here to visit the website.
Farmworker Justice and Migrant Clinicians Network recently developed a brochure that contains patient information about health insurance. Click here to view the English version; click here to view the Spanish version.
National Hispanic & Latino ATTC released a recording of its webinar from May 2016, Developing Culturally Centered Interventions for Hispanic and Latino Populations. Click here to watch, as well as view past webinars.
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Upcoming Events
July
National Hispanic & Latino ATTC will host a webinar in Spanish, Tratamiento específico por género: Reconociendo las realidades de las mujeres al atender los trastornos por consume de sustancias, on Wednesday, July 13th from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST. Click here to register.
HHS Office of Population Affairs will host a webinar, Zika Toolkit: Expanding Access to Quality Family Planning and Zika-related Care, on Wednesday, July 13th from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM EST. Click here to register.
CRVFHP Monthly Meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 19th from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Community Health Services in Hartford, CT.
Corporation for Supportive Housing hosts its webinar, Using Integrated Teams to Provide High Quality and Coordinated Care to Highly Vulnerable Patients, on Thursday, July 21st from 2:00 PM to 3:15 PM EST. Click here to register.AgriSafe Network presents its webinar, Improving Injury Surveillance for Agriculture and Logging in the Northeastern United States, Wednesday, July 27th from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM EST. Click here to register.
National Association of Community Health Centers will host a webinar in Spanish, Incluyendo el compromiso cívico en sus eventos de la semana nacional de los centros de salud, on Wednesday, July 27th from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Click here to register.
August
CRVFHP Monthly Meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 16th from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Baystate Brightwood Health Center in Springfield, MA.
Migrant Clinicians Network presents its webinar, Community Health Workers Can Make a Difference in Helping People Stay Safe and Healthy on the Job, on Wednesday, August 17th from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM EST. Click here to register.AgriSafe Network will present its webinar, Health Disparities of Immigrant Workers in Agriculture on Wednesday, August 24th from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM EST. Click here to register.
Office for Victims of Crime will conduct a webinar called, Supporting Young Male Survivors of Violence, on Thursday, August 25th from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM EST. Click here to register.
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NATIONAL HEALTH OBSERVANCES
JULY
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The Supreme Court's Ruling Against DAPA
For those who work with the undocumented immigrant community, the Supreme Court's recent ruling against Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) was extremely disappointing. DAPA, developed by the Obama Administration in 2014, would have granted some undocumented immigrants temporary work authorization and residency in the U.S. for up to three years. The plan would have benefited up to 4 million undocumented immigrants, which included parents whose children are citizens or legal residents, and those who were brought here illegally as children and did not qualify for the 2012 plan which would have also granted them legal residency. The Washington Post recently published an in-depth article that breaks down DAPA and the ruling against it, taking time to emphasize who this ruling affects and how. The article even contains a flowchart that someone can follow to see if he or she would have qualified for legal residency and work authorization if the plan had passed. While DAPA was indeed knocked down, it was done so in a tie, and not by a majority vote, which gives the ruling less weight and suggests that instead of being pushed off the table forever, it is rather put on pause until the end of Obama's presidency. Depending on who wins the election, DAPA could be pushed forward once again. To read the Washington Post's full article, click here.
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Improving Education for Migrant Students
The population of migrant-background students in primary and secondary schools is growing as more people migrate to new countries with their families. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) recently released a report called "Improving Education for Migrant-Background Students: A Transatlantic Comparison of School Funding," which looks at the ways four different countries work to support the education of migrant-background students. This report focuses on Canada, France, Germany, and the United States, and looks especially at various funding mechanisms and policies that attempt to facilitate migrant-background education opportunities. Some countries have intricate, well-developed systems of support for migrant-background students, while others are just beginning to create practices and policies that meet the needs of this particular population. The MPI report explains why funding for migrant-background students is important, and then goes on to dissect the various mechanisms of school funding in the four countries listed, looking specifically at public education spending and supplementary funding opportunities. Moreover, MPI highlights challenges and strategies that decision makers face and make as they attempt to secure additional resources. To access the full report, click here. |
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Where to Look for Resources: Farmworker Health Network
For key resources and farmworker health guides, please refer to the Farmworker Health Network (FHN). The FHN is a group of six National Cooperative Agreements in migrant health funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide technical assistance and training to migrant health centers. Click here for a comprehensive list of FHN agencies.
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