Overview

The school-based health care movement started in the early 1980s with a handful of projects. Today, more than 1,700 school-based health centers serve nearly two million young people across the U.S. every year. Approximately 40% of these students have no other medical home, largely because they live in communities with limited access to health care. School-based health care provides primary care where students are most of the time, in schools. With the knowledge that children and adolescents are more successful when they are in school and learning, school-based health care is a model of care designed for students. The Kellogg Foundation launched the five-year School-Based Health Care Policy Program in 2004.

The program's vision is that:

School-based health care will be financially stable, available, and accessible to children and families, and supported as a consumer-centered model of quality care throughout the United States.

The Foundation has awarded grants to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC) and nine of its state affiliates. Working with numerous local school-based health centers, state affiliates or grantees are implementing a broad array of strategies to increase the sustainability of school-based health centers, including grassroots advocacy, community organizing, technical assistance, and data collection. Over the five years, the grantees will also build their visibility and capacity to represent and advocate for school-based health care centers in their states.

In addition to providing affiliates with direct assistance, NASBHC will coordinate national communications efforts and build widespread support for policies, programs, research, and funding that will advance school-based health care centers throughout the country. Despite the demonstrated benefit of school-based health care centers, they constantly struggle to secure reliable funding and survive through an unstable mix of state general funds, tobacco taxes, federal funds, third-party billing, and special grants.

Currently, 36 percent of school-based health centers report receiving any funds from the federal government, according to National Assembly of School Based Health Care's 2004-2005 Census. Yet, voters look to the government at both state and federal levels to set aside specific funds for the centers.