Ingham Community Health Center to Open in ELHS
The East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) Board of Education gathered Monday (Nov. 13) for a presentation from Ingham Community Health Center (ICHC) representatives about a school-based health clinic opening at East Lansing High School (ELHS) and ELHS students involved in the local chapter of the Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN).
The meeting kicked off with reports from student representative Jennifer Rairigh and Superintendent Dori Leyko. The board heard about the high school football team’s advancement to the state semifinals on Saturday (Nov. 18) and recent staff training on “Learning Fridays.” During the training sessions, staff learned about topics like mental and emotional health, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and de-escalation strategies.
The school-based health center is expected to open in January.
A highlight of the meeting was a presentation by Kris Drake, ICHC executive director, and Nancy Diwara, operations manager of the organization’s school-based health programs, who shared details of the establishment of an Ingham County Health Department School-Based Health Clinic within ELHS. Currently there are 12 health centers in Ingham County, including two school-based centers in high schools in Lansing.
The health center at ELHS will typically operate with six staff members: a medical provider, a behavioral health consultant, a nurse, two medical assistants and a community health worker. The staff will eventually provide a full range of services, including immunizations; physical examinations and sports physicals; mental health assessments, counseling and referrals; as well as referrals for lab work or more specialized care. Services at the health centers are provided in partnership with organizations including Michigan State University, CEI-Community Mental Health, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and Sparrow Health Systems.
The center is expected to begin providing behavioral health care and health education services on site in January 2024. Drake said he hopes to have the center running at full capacity as soon as possible.
The center will operate out of the repurposed ELHS technology center and will have both an internal and external entrance. Additional security measures will be instituted to monitor the external entrance.
Diwara identified several benefits of the planned collaboration, including more overall class time for ELHS students who will no longer need to leave the school campus to receive medical attention; increased preventative care; and greater accessibility to health care for the East Lansing community as a whole. Anyone ages 4-21 will be eligible for care at the health center and do not need to be enrolled in East Lansing Public Schools. Health insurance is also not required to access care.
“We are excited about this partnership,” Drake said. “We are excited to be bringing these health care services to the students and we are excited to be treating the East Lansing community. It’s high time we do our duty [to East Lansing].”
MSAN at high school plans to create a podcast entitled “Humanization Station.”
Presentations to the board concluded with an update from Claudia Berton, Director of Equity and Justice for ELPS, and Diana Sanchez, an ELHS teacher, who shared the accomplishments of the student group MSAN. The organization is a national coalition of multi-racial school districts looking to improve access, opportunity and achievement for students of color.
The ELHS MSAN students recently attended a conference in Madison, Wisconsin, where they drafted an action plan for a community intervention to be implemented within the 2024 school year. Included in the plan is creation of a podcast called the “Humanization Station,” which will tackle topics like race, gender, LGBTQ+, disability, and socioeconomic class.
Last year’s MSAN campaign, “Calling out Microaggressions and Calling in Community,” looked to help ELPS students and staff “identify microaggressions and provide strategies to confront them for yourself and others.” This year, MSAN students told the board they will focus on the personal, hoping to “provide a space for people to speak their truth” and “bridge the divide” between students and staff.” The first episode of “The Humanization Station” is scheduled for release in January 2024.
The ELPS Board of Education’s next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 27 in the lower level of ELHS.
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