Collaborating for Children's Health

Community Health Connections Family Health Centers (CHCFHC)
North Central, MA

Total CAVU funding: $140,000

Results: Created connections between medical and educational communities.
Impacted hundreds of children.
Laying the foundations for future efforts.

CAVU's first pilot program, Collaborating for Children's Health (CCH), has concluded after three years. The program, based at Community Health Connections Family Health Centers (CHCFHC) of Fitchburg, MA, sought to improve communication between the medical and educational communities and to increase access to a broadened range of services at CHCFHC. CCH was designed to improve access to affordable, culturally competent health care, with a focus on mental health. This was done through parallel efforts to increase capacity to serve children's health needs at CHCFHC and at two local schools. The program met its goal of improving child and adolescent mental health evaluation and treatment services at the health center. it also laid the groundwork for continuing efforts to bridge the gap between schools and service providers and directly impacted several hundred children through mental health and referral services in schools in Winchendon and Fitchburg.

One important lesson learned from the CCH program was that collaboration in bringing schools and service providers together yields greater results. Thus, CHCFHC and CAVU worked together over the past 18 months to form the Regional School Health Coalition (RSHC), a broad-based effort to bring schools and service providers together. CCH was a valuable starting point for improving communication between schools and medical/mental health providers, and obstacles that were encountered along the way have provided valuable lessons for other local school-based programs. As CCH staff stated in their final program report: "as a pilot for future programs, we feel that [the program] is a success within itself." CAVU is pleased with the multiple positive outcomes of CCH, and will continue to work with the RSHC and other local projects which are continuing CCH's vision of a community where medical and educational communities work together in support of children's health.