SMART® Clinic to Begin Student Care
Embedded at Mt. Pleasant High School, the clinic is the first of three sites planned for Providence Schools this year.
Providence Public School District has announced that the first of three announced SMART® Clinics—health and wellness centers embedded within school campuses and designed to support academic success—will begin providing care to students at Mt. Pleasant High School this week. The district expects the site to become fully operational over the next several weeks.
The Rhode Island Department of Education, in collaboration with the CVS Health Foundation, the Partnership for Rhode Island, the Papitto Foundation and the Rhode Island Foundation, is bringing the nationally recognized SMART® model to Mt. Pleasant High School, Roger Williams Middle School and a third Providence school site to be determined. The initiative is another step in RIDE’s broader efforts to transform Providence schools to support future success for all city students.
SMART® stands for School Health Model for Academics Reaching All and Transforming Lives. The SMART Student Health and Wellness Model, created and implemented by Ginn Group Consulting, is designed to support educational achievement by creating a culture of physical and behavioral wellness. Services are available to students, their families and school staff, and include screening and routine lab testing, routine physicals, medical prescriptions and counseling, among others. Outcomes at other SMART® Clinics around the country have shown decreases in chronic absenteeism and out-of-school suspensions and increases in both student and teacher attendance.
Providence Community Health Centers will serve as the certified medical provider partner. The local health teams are licensed to diagnose, treat and prescribe for illness and injury onsite in real time and then continuously follow up for best outcomes. Led by a family nurse practitioner and a licensed clinical social worker, each SMART team proactively aims to screen all students to identify physical and behavioral risks to academic success. The self-sustaining business model bills families’ insurance, but no students will be turned away.
For more about SMART Clinics, visithttp://www.4pvdkids.com/smartclinics/.
