HEALTHY & THRIVING SCHOOLS
Academic Co-Lead: Jacquelin Rankine, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh
Academic Co-Lead: Anne Marie Kuchera, MS, MA, RD, LPC , Director of Community Health, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
Community Co-Lead: Kathi Elliott, DNP, MSW, CRNP, CEO Black Girls Equity Alliance
Community Co-Lead: James Fogarty, Pittsburgh Learning Collaborative, Executive Director, A+ Schools
Enhancing Student Resiliency Through Community Collaboration
Our unique, community-centered approach emphasizes racial equity and healing justice to improve trauma-sensitive practices. By leveraging the strengths and strategies of students, families, faculty, staff, administrators, and community partners, we aim to boost student resiliency and help them thrive.
The use of a healing justice framework presents many opportunities to highlight many positive examples of thriving and resilience among children, families, and communities. With this, we change the narrative and perceptions toward positive future orientation for our youth and away from society’s focus on negative behaviors. Instead, we prioritize strategies that enhance resiliency and promote relational healing at the core of our approach. Through jointly developed and delivered program interventions we build our collective understanding of the underlying and adjacent causes of chronic absenteeism to improve attendance and strengthen students’ connection to school.
Trauma’s impacts on school outcomes include:
- Higher absenteeism
- Lower academic achievement
- Reduced graduation rates
- Increased risk of unhealthy coping behaviors
Anchor Partners
The Pittsburgh Learning Collaborative, coordinated by A+ Schools, has served over 20,000 students and families in our region. Through bimonthly meetings, lunch and learns, and an annual summit, Pittsburgh Learning Collaborative members have the space to learn from and about each other, and the organizational support for students to take meaningful action. This space helps to reduce redundancies in service provision, helps foster new connections and facilitates a powerful network that is building a deep understanding of the issues impacting school attendance and working to solve them. Through its “Circle our Schools” Workgroup, the Collaborative provides direct resources for critical supports like tutoring, transportation, health, mental health supports, family engagement, space improvements, student enrichment opportunities, and school safety initiatives.
Coordinated by Gwen’s Girls, the Black Girls Equity Alliance (BGEA) is a key partner in implementation of supportive interventions for youth. In response to growing awareness of national and local inequities experienced by Black girls, Gwen’s Girls hosts an annual equity summit to amplify youth advocacy, inform, and motivate actions to address inequities. the summit program is presented by the young women of BGEA and attendees include service providers, representatives of educational, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems; community members, and researchers.
UPMC Children’s Hospital Division of Community Health has a longstanding commitment to partnering with local schools to support child health and well being. For nearly a decade, Children’s has been working alongside the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to create healthier school environments for youth and school staff. Together, they’ve implemented the Healthy Schools Program, an evidence-based framework grounded in the CDC’s Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model in more than 80 schools and provide training, technical assistance, support to establish wellness committees, conduct school health assessments, and implement action plans for improvement. Years of data from the Thriving Schools Integrated Assessment has proven that this significant, measurable, and sustainable approach is a catalyst for student success.
As a global leader in pediatric care, UPMC Children’s Hospital has developed an innovative program in collaboration with school nurses to improve access to care and chronic disease management for students. AnywhereCare@School is a telehealth model that enables school nurses to engage in a secure and private video consult with a Children’s Hospital provider, right from their school office. In this collaborative care model, the nurse and student meet with the health care provider together through the nurse’s computer. The program aims to keep students in school and parents at work unless additional medical concerns need to be addressed. The School Care Connect portion of the program focuses on addressing the needs of students with chronic conditions by enhancing communication between healthcare providers and school nurses during the school day. The program features a School Nurse Navigator who facilitates coordination between school nurses and healthcare providers. With input from a 25-School Nurse Advisory Group, we will continue to collaborate to address the health needs of students during the school day.
Community-based Partners
McKeesport Area School District
Penn Hills School District
Pennsylvania Association of School Nurses and Practitioners
Pittsburgh Public School District
Steel Valley School District
Sto-Rox School District
West Mifflin Area School District
Wilkinsburg Borough School District
Woodland Hills School District