News Releases
9/11/07
Two grants from REACH Healthcare Foundation will make significant contributions to medical and mental health care in Kansas City, Kan.
A $123,920 REACH grant will enable University of Kansas School of Social Welfare social work students to work with students at Rosedale Middle School, Kansas City, Kan.
“We’ll be the link between the mental health center and the middle school,” said Donna Devine, project manager. “The mental health center wants to provide the service, but they don’t always have the access they’d like at the school. And schools don’t have the time and resources to make sure the connections are made.”
Devine said the outreach program is a partnership among KU, Rosedale Middle School and the Wyandot Center for Community Behavioral Healthcare.
As part of the program, social work students will spend part of their practica at the middle school, where they will help educate students about mental health services that are available for them.
“We will be there, available to do whatever we can to open up communication and reduce the barriers of getting the service to the kids,” Devine said. “We estimated that we’ll reach about 80 kids in one capacity or another. There may be issues with poverty, lack of financial resources or their parents are caught up in trying to provide the basics – there’s a lot of stress.”
As more than half the students in the school are Hispanic, the grant includes funds to hire a part-time Spanish-speaking parent to facilitate communication with parents, guardians, teachers and students.
Devine said the new program meshes well with REACH Foundation’s goal to increase access to health care for medically underserved populations. REACH is based in Merriam, Kan.
“REACH is paying for the staff person to be the liaison, to help with training, to get the paperwork done,” Devine said, “and to make sure the kids don’t fall through the cracks.”
Another REACH grant provides crucial support to Silver City Health Center, a clinic in Wyandotte County’s Argentine area. Silver City serves those for whom social barriers, economics and a lack of health insurance stand in the way of needed health care. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2002, more than 24,000 residents of Wyandotte County lived in poverty.
Mary Virden, Silver City’s administrator, said the support from the $100,000 Silver City grant is crucial to operating the clinic. The bulk of the grant will help pay for medical supplies and salaries.
“We are predicting that for the next fiscal year we will have about 3,600 primary care and chronic care patient encounters, plus another 1,000 patients who come in for community education and nurse visits,” Virden said.
The clinic is owned by the University of Kansas and managed by KU Health Partners, which includes staff from KU’s Schools of Nursing and Allied Health.
Physician residents from KU’s School of Medicine and nurse practitioners treat the patients who come into the clinic. Of the patient population, Virden said, about 69 percent are uninsured or qualify for low-income government-funded healthcare, such as Medicaid for adults or HealthWave for children. And, because nearly half the patients are Hispanic, health care services are provided in English and Spanish.
According to Virden, this is Silver City’s second grant from REACH this year. An earlier grant, for $30,000, helped fund the clinic’s move to a new location in Argentine, and purchases newer medical examination stools and furniture for the community education room.
The most important thing about Silver City, Virden said, is that it provides a way for patients to get the healthcare they need.
Patients are asked to answer survey questions, one of which asks where the patient would have gone for healthcare had Silver City not existed.
“And occasionally, the answer is, ‘Nowhere, I would have died,’” Virden said. “If we weren’t here, where would these patients go?”
The gifts will be managed by KU Endowment Association, an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.
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