Celebrating School-Based Health Centers
Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) is joining school-based health center providers and advocates from across the nation in recognizing the month of February as National School-Based Health Care Awareness Month. National School-Based Health Care Awareness Month is sponsored by the School-Based Health Alliance, a national organization that promotes and supports school-based health centers to assure all children receive high quality, comprehensive healthcare. The Alliance is celebrating the month with the theme, School-Based Health Centers: Healing Super Heroes Every School Day.
PCHC’s Brewer School-Based Health Centers (SBHC) started in the winter of 2006 at the Brewer Middle School and Brewer High School. In 2011, the Middle School practice moved to the Brewer Community School. This year marks our 12th anniversary! Our SBHC provides over 1,000 Brewer students, from PreK through 12th grade, access to routine primary medical and dental care, mental health counseling services, and health education, including preventative measures like tobacco use, nutrition and obesity, healthy relationships, bullying, and more. The convenience of an on-site health center allows students to receive immediate health care at the place where they spend the most time: their school! Our health center is a great back-up plan for parents who might otherwise need to leave work to take sick children to Walk-In Care or their own primary care providers. Our SBHC cares for urgent medical needs, as well as helps students to manage chronic, on-going issues.
Any Brewer student can enroll to use these school-based services! Parents or guardians can visit https://www.breweredu.org/health-center–6 for more information, including the enrollment form. Anyone needing assistance enrolling their child is welcome to contact the Brewer School-Based Health Center directly by calling (207) 992-2393.
PCHC is thankful for our School-Based Health Center employees who are so dedicated to the students at both Brewer Community School and Brewer High School. Through their work, this unique population has been able to access thousands of medical, dental, and mental health visits over the past 12 years. As the Alliance states, “Where health and education come together, great things happen – and our young super heroes are healed.”