Entry 6: Friends & Small Victories

I wish I could make songs play when you guys opened up each entry. For this one, I would have played “I Get By With A Little Help By My Friends” by the Beatles, though I like the Joe Cocker version a lot.

It’s obvious that getting this school-based health center (SBHC) established is not going to happen by our work alone. We need friends   partners   advocates. We need community leaders…we need the community. What makes a SBHC so unique and important as a means for delivering adolescent health services is that it is built around the needs of each specific community. One of our partners, and good friends says it best… “When you’ve seen one school-based health center, well, you’ve seen one school-based health center”.

Some have dentist offices, some don’t. Some have child nurse practitioners, some have family nurse practitioners. Some have psychiatrist, many have a nutritionist. But whatever staff and services are provided, are provided for a reason…that’s what the community needs.

One reason why it’s important to have friends in this process is because they can help us figure out what the primary needs of the community are. They can share historical data. They can share experience. But really why we want to bring these friends to the table is so that they can share in the ownership of this SBHC and the impact that it’s going to have on the community.

We have met with some really outstanding people at the Health Dept. in Wake County. People who are willing to help us on our journey. People who will have a stake in our projects success. People who will make a difference in the health of thousands of teenagers in our community.

This has led us to some really exciting places lately! Interestingly enough, once every 4 years, Wake County releases data compiled from a HUGE county-wide needs assessment. To disseminate this information, the county hosts multiple “community forums”. During these forums people facilitate discussions about what the data says and develop strategies and priorities for the next four years.

What is KEY about all of this is knowing that the priorities that come out of these forums go directly to the County Commissioners as recommendations for community health policies for the next four years. Meaning, if we can get people talking about this SBHC during these meetings, and understand that 9 out of 10 of the adolescent health issues that they are talking about can be positively impacted by establishing this center, the county commissioners will see that this is what the community needs, and more importantly, what the community WANTS.

The first forum was slightly productive and held in the heart of downtown Raleigh. We were able to get a feel for what the data said and what the discussions were like.

For the second forum, we were prepared and went in with a mission…Get People Talking About School-Based Health Centers.

Also, we didn’t register for this one, so it REALLY seemed like we were going in as rogue advocates!!! What do you mean my name tag isn’t legit???

At this meeting we were able to ask questions to the larger group about a center and, even more importantly, do some myth-busting:

Me: Have people out in this part of the county thought or talked about the impact that a school-based health center might have?

Facilitator: Welllll, yes, but there is a lot of fear around having contraceptives that close to students and on school-campus?

Me: But isn’t it true that it is a NC State Law that you cannot hand out contraceptives on the grounds of a school?

Facilitator: Wellll, yes.

Me: So that is really more of a myth.

Facilitator: Yes, that is a myth.

 

“Victory is won not in the miles but in the inches” - Louis L'Amour

Entry 5: It is not enough to just want it

Little known fact about me, I have spent 4+ years of my professional life (1997 – 2001) making pizzas in a variety of Italian restaurants as well as Dominoes. If you don’t believe me, ask GlutenHatesMe how often I spin random things around the house on my finger…

 

Anyways…as crazy/hectic/chaotic as it was working in the kitchen of a restaurant, there was something that I really came to appreciate. If you can sit back for a second, you can see flow of how things and people move about the kitchen, a quiet undercurrent of organization that goes into make peoples food.

I’ve come to realize the same thing about community development work, and even more so about this project of establishing a school-based health center in a Wake County high school. I’ve realized that just wanting it to happen, even working with a group of youth who passionately want it to happen, is just the beginning.

It is really exciting to see the pieces of this project, the pieces of the community move and shift into place. There are key people that are necessary to make something like this to happen: a fiscal sponsor, a community advisory council, the school health advisory committee, the local health department, the local hospital, and so on and so on. These are all people who are vital to this process.

Though, not vital because these are people who make the important decisions for community. But because we want this project to be sustained long after we are done with this project. We want a school-based health center to be established, and to stay. These people are not just going to help make this decision for the community, these people are going to help keep the pieces afloat after our project has ended.

Because isn’t that what sustainability is, facilitating growth outside of yourself or your group so that the people who impacted by these types of services can keep it going once you are gone…working yourself out of a job.

This project is turning out to be a great learning experience for me and even more so, I love watching the way this kitchen (community) flows. Pieces are coming together slowly, but that is ok. If there is anything that I can say about this process is that it extremely important to do the work, take the time, plan effectively, bring people in in the early stages, because this is going to make sure that things will be around long after you are gone.