Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service Helps Address School Health in Southeastern Ohio

Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service has partnered with Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Wright State University’s Kevin Lorson to improve child wellbeing through increased access to healthcare including behavioral health for school-aged children throughout Southeastern Ohio. Margaret Hutzel, assistant group leader at the Voinovich School, led the effort.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Lorson reached out to the Voinovich School in 2019 about the possibility of collaborating to inform Southeastern Ohio school districts about the Centers for Disease Control’s Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model. They and Voinovich staff hosted multiple sessions throughout 2019, 2020 and 2021 for personnel at schools and education service centers as well as community providers to develop knowledge and plans for implementing the model.

“We were eager to collaborate and bring forward the WSCC model to increase access to care because we know there are disparities in children’s health, especially in rural communities,” Hutzel said.

The WSCC model is the CDC’S framework for addressing health in schools. It emphasizes the importance of the community in supporting the school, the connections between health and academic achievement and the importance of evidence-based school policies and practices. In the model, the school is seen as a community hub that informs families and communities of different ways to keep children healthy and safe.

“The model and sessions question how we can help students reach their highest academic potential if we do not address other barriers they encounter on a daily basis,” said Mary Kay Irwin, senior director for school health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “If children are not healthy, then how do we expect them to reach their fullest potential?”

The overall goal of the Southeastern Ohio WSCC sessions was to encourage and teach staff at schools and education centers the different ways to create community partnerships for school health clinics. Hutzel and the Voinovich school were tasked with reaching out to local school districts and informing them of the opportunity. Irwin and Lorson provided much of the content and facilitation for the sessions.

The model was implemented over a series of five virtual sessions with administrators and educators from 12 schools and education service centers. The sessions explained the WSCC model, encouraged the school personnel to think about potential partnerships and, most importantly, taught them how to implement a school health clinic.

At the conclusion of the five sessions, Nationwide Children’s Hospital offered grants to the school districts, allowing them to work directly with a community health provider to create school-based clinics. Today, six of the 12 school districts are working with local providers to create and implement clinics.

“The most meaningful thing in the model is the new relationships,” said Irwin. “We want to build relationships across sectors of school districts and healthcare providers – collectively gaining an appreciation of each other and finding opportunities to work more intentionally together.”

Moving forward, Hutzel and Irwin say they hope schools can transition from strategic planning and collaboration to tangible partnerships with providers. They want the districts to set up the clinics, provide healthcare to children and evolve to make the clinics sustainable into the future.

“Hearing that several of the districts are working directly on setting up these school-based clinics stood out to me as such a positive outcome,” said Hutzel. “I’m just really happy to be part of this project and to help in any way I can to bring the WSCC model to Southeast Ohio.