Weekly Insider Jul 02-Jul 08 2009

The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools Weekly Insider is a web-enhanced newsletter that offers news alerts, grant announcements and general web site updates delivered directly to your email box on a weekly basis. The Center is located at the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.



New Resources
 
The recently published Research Highlight from RAND entitled, Making It Easier for School Staff to Help Traumatized Students, explores how schools can help students weighed down by witnessing violence, trauma, or maltreatment.

Trends in Adolescent and Young Adult Health in the United States, a new publication by the Baker Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, identifies that extending health insurance to children throughout the US would not only be less costly than letting children remain uninsured, but would serve to generate economic benefits.

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children’s Learning and Health, a policy brief from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, focuses on videos games as an opportunity to promote children’s health.

New from the Center

The Center has released Issue Brief #2, Partnering with Parents and Families to Support Immigrant and Refugee Children at School, written by Eileen Gale Kugler. The issue brief provides background on the impact of the immigrant and refugee experience on children and youth and the importance of engaging the entire family in addressing the mental health needs of immigrant and refugee students to build a crucial home-school partnership that may open doors to student success. View Issue Brief #2 here under Publications for Caring Across Communities

On Thursday, May 21, 2pm EST the Center held its third webinar on Understanding the rise in suicide attempts in Latina teens presented by Dr. Luis Zayas, professor at the School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The webinar examined the high rate of suicide attempts by adolescent Latinas in the US and factors that may contribute to the rate. To access the archived webinar (PowerPoint and audio), click here.


Important Topics

Safety on the road

School-connected travel is a year-round happening. Summer schools and day camps frequently feature outings to parks, community pools, and other destinations. School and camp staff as well as parents need to review policies for handling day and overnight trips. Check out the following resources:

Upcoming Meetings

  • Austin, TX: 2009 Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners Conference (CREATE) – Improving Outcomes for English Language Learners, Oral Language and Literacy Learning Across the Curriculum. October 5-6, 2009. For more information and to register for this event, please visit: http://www.cal.org/create/events/create2009/index.html
  • South Padre Island, TX: 17th Annual HIV/AIDS update Conference and Border Health Summit. October 27-30, 2009. or more information and to register for the event, please visit: http://www.valleyaids.org
  • Baltimore, MD: International Social Services and the University of Maryland School of Social Work – Practical Considerations: The Nexus of Social Work and Law in International Child Welfare. October 30-31, 2009. For more information and to register for the event, please visit: http://www.iss-usa.org/pressdetails.asp?IdPress=12

Previously Posted Meetings

  • New Orleans, LA: National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers 40th Anniversary School Security Conference. July 20-22, 2009. For more information and to register for the event, please visit: http://www.nassleo.org/conference.shtml
  • Bellevue, WA: Child and Adult Care Food Program Sponsors Association (TSA) Annual Conference.  September 20-22, 2009. For more information and to register for the event, please visit: http://www.cacfp.org/conference.asp



Job opportunities

  • Dimock Community Health Center – Vice President of Development and Communications (Roxbury, MA)
  • Riverbend Community Mental Health – Child Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (Concord, New Hampshire)
  • Public Health Solutions – Nurse Supervisor (Far Rockaway, NY)
  • Blue Shield of California – Health Care and Coverage Program Officer (San Francisco, CA)
  • The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs – Program Manager, Children and Youth with special needs(Washington, DC)
  • The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – Senior Clinical Research Coordinator (Philadelphia, PA)


    Grant Alerts

    Jostens Foundation – Community Involvement Grants  (Deadline: 8/25/09)
    Jostens supports strong communities and healthy children and families. The foundation’s main focus is to fund programs that help youth become healthy and productive adults.

    • Innovating Worthy Projects Foundation – Innovating Worthy Projects Foundation (Deadline: 8/31/09)
    The Innovating Worthy Projects Foundation was founded to provide financial grants for structuring, developing, or altering special-needs children’s programs.

    Charles Lafitte Foundation – Healthy Living Grants (Deadline: Rolling)
    The Charles Lafitte Foundation supports innovative and effective ways for people to help themselves and others around them lead healthy and satisfying lives.

    Wal-Mart Foundation – Walmart Store and Sam’s Club Giving Program (Deadline: Rolling)
    The Wal-Mart Foundation supports programs and initiatives addressing education, workforce development, economic sustainability, and health and wellness.

    Wachovia Foundation – Wachovia Community Needs Grants (Deadline: Rolling)
    The Wachovia Foundation provides Community Needs Grants to support organizations working to improve communities with low- to moderate-income. In particular, the Foundation strives to improve education, community development, and environmental health, ensure access to health and human services, and to bolster civic engagement.

    The Prudential Foundation – Revitalizing Communities (Deadline: Rolling)    
    The Prudential Foundation promotes sustainable communities by focusing its grant making on education, economic development, and civic structure.


    New Resources


    The recently published Research Highlight from RAND entitled, Making It Easier for School Staff to Help Traumatized Students,     builds off of research conducted by the organization a decade ago identifying that high proportions of children attend school weighed down by witnessing violence, trauma, or maltreatment. Interventions have been designed for school mental health clinicians to address the needs of traumatized students, though these professionals are not present in all schools. This Research Highlight presents results of a pilot study on training teachers and counselors to provide mental health services. Results indicate that participating teachers successfully implemented the pilot program and counselors and students with high level of trauma symptoms prior to the intervention demonstrated reductions in their trauma symptoms. Finally, this Research Highlight concludes by pointing out there is now need to conduct a larger evaluation of the pilot study.

    Trends in Adolescent and Young Adult Health in the United States, a new publication in the Journal of Adolescent Health, reports on the health profile of adolescents and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24 years in terms of demographics, mortality, behaviors, health care access and utilization, and identification of any disparities. Demographically, this sub-population increased from40.1 to 63.3 million between 1990 and 2006. Also, one in 10 adolescents between 15 and 24 years were immigrants of foreign-born in 2006, of which 63.5 percent are Hispanics. By 2005, 7 in 10 deaths in this sub-population were attributed to motor vehicle accidents, homicide, and suicide. With regards to behavior, the prevalence of overweight among youth ages 12 to 19 years has nearly doubled between 1988-1994 and 2003-2006, while one in four adolescents between the ages of 18 to 24 years are classified as overweight. Finally, in terms of health care access and utilization, young adults have the lowest rate of insurance compared to all age groups. Please access this publication for additional health trends in adolescents and young adults.    

    Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health, a policy brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, specifies how increased national investment in research-based digital games might play a cost-effective and transformative role and provides comprehensive actions steps for media industry, government, philanthropy, and academia to use the appeal of digital games to improve children’s health and learning. The report makes five recommendations to address the country’s digital-age challenges in both health and education: 1) implement research and development initiatives at the federal and state levels; 2) create innovative partnerships; 3) support adult guidance for children’s digital activities; 4) modernize public media; and 5) initiate a broad public dialogue about digital media and games. 
     

    Job opportunities

    Dimock Community Health Center – Vice President of Development and Communications (Roxbury, MA)
    The Dimock Community Health Center is seeking a Vice President of Development and Communications. Responsibilities include developing a diverse fundraising program that includes annual giving, corporate and foundation grants, major gifts, planned giving, and special events. Also, the position will require management of a communications program to complement these fundraising efforts. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit: http://philanthropy.com/jobs/id.php?id=0000603471-01&pg=s

    Riverbend Community Mental Health – Child Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (Concord, New Hampshire)
    The Riverbend Community Mental Health is seeking a Child Psychiatrist. Responsibilities include providing outpatient services to children with severe emotional disturbances, providing assessments and monitoring of patients. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit: http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Job/342931-195

    Public Health Solutions – Nurse Supervisor (Far Rockaway, NY)
    Public Health Solutions is seeking a Nurse Supervisor. Responsibilities include visiting families in their homes, overseeing the community-based nurse home visiting program, supervising a team of eight RNs and one data manager, and maintaining policies and procedures. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit: http://www.publichealthjobs.net/search/detail.cfm?jobID=8365

    Blue Shield of California – Health Care and Coverage Program Officer (San Francisco, CA)
    Blue Shield of California Foundation is seeking a Health Care and Coverage Program Officer. Responsibilities include managing the net grant making portfolio of the Health Care and Coverage program, managing new and existing programs, maintaining and developing relationships with policy makers, regulators, and other stakeholders, and assisting with other program staff. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit: http://www.opportunityknocks.org/JobseekerX/ViewJob.asp?JobID=I2qE4XDI7z8Tj9l%2B4w9zBw3VnKyh  

    The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs – Program Manager, Children & Youth with Special Health Care Needs (Washington, DC)
    The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs is seeking a Program Managers. Responsibilities include developing, implementing, and evaluating program activities related to children and youth with special health care needs, birth defects and development disabilities, and early childhood development. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit: http://cfusion.sph.emory.edu/PHEC/phec.cfm. (Search Term: Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs)

    The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – Senior Clinical Research Coordinator (Philadelphia, PA)
    The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is seeking a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator. Responsibilities include recruiting, screening, and enrolling appropriate patients into the clinical study in accordance with Good Clinical Practices, confirm eligibility, informed consent process, and scheduling other research activities. For more information and to apply to this position, please visit:     http://cfusion.sph.emory.edu/PHEC/phec.cfm. (Search Term: The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia)