Funded Projects

Addressing Health-Related Social Needs in Schools  

Project Year

2024

City & State

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Program Name

CATCH Implementation

Topic

School Health

Program Description

The Problem: Children’s academic performance, school attendance and social, emotional and behavioral wellbeing are inextricably connected to their health. Chronic health conditions, such as asthma, are leading causes of absenteeism and are health-related barriers to learning. Social needs, or unmet material needs experienced by families, impact children’s health. These include, but are not limited to food, housing, transportation, utilities and health care access.  Studies have found a dose-response relationship between social needs and health. For children, higher levels of unmet social needs have been associated with persistent asthma and lower levels of child wellness (Telzak, et al, 2023; Kreuter et al, 2021).  Similar to health care, school systems can play a sizable role in assessing social needs and connecting families to services. Public schools are often trusted agents of change in our communities and are responsible for the education, health and welfare of diverse student populations. Schools can help reduce health-related barriers to learning and connect family’s to social needs services that have a downstream impact on student health and educational outcomes.   Primary Setting and Children Affected: In an effort to educate and care for the whole child, SDP initiated a first of its kind partnership with Benephilly, a City of Philadelphia government program that offers free one-on-one help to enroll residents in public benefits programs that can help with health insurance, prescription drug cost, food assistance, heat and utilities, property taxes, disability benefits and paying for college. A Benephilly navigator is located in SDP’s district office every Wednesday. Families can make an appointment or walk-in. Translation services are available as well. The service is open to families of any SDP student.  SDP has a student population of 116,000 students.  Since the inception of the benefits navigation program in October 2023 through December 2023, 74 families have made an appointment to receive services. Of the families that registered the top three social needs were health insurance, food assistance and heat/utilities. 50% of families that made an appointment were from 1 zip code in Philadelphia.   Project Goal: Understanding that there is a need for public benefits awareness and that certain Philadelphia residents are less likely to receive their expected public benefits the goal of this project is two-fold: 1) Increase awareness of public benefits and the benefits navigation program among SDP families, and 2) Increase the number of SDP families that register and keep their appointment with the benefits navigation program.   Proposed Intervention: We plan to reach these goals by conducting school-level needs assessments for social needs/public benefits and parent/caregiver engagement through focus groups discussions. Findings from the focus groups and need assessment, will be used to inform targeted messaging and outreach to school communities and families about public benefits and the benefits navigation program. This project will partner with Benephilly and  staff school(particularly, principals, counselors and nurses).   Anticipated Outcomes:  1) Schools and parents/caregivers will have increased awareness of public benefits and community resources through the development of family-centered, culturally responsive messaging and communications (flyers, posters, videos, social media posts); 2) parents/caregivers across the school district will have increased knowledge of the benefits navigation program and there will be increased diversity in the geographical distribution of families who register for the program.   

Project Goal

Increase awareness of public benefits and the benefits navigation program among SDP families within the 18 priority low-income zip codes.

Project Objective 1

By the midpoint of the project period, engage the school communities and families from the priority zip codes on social needs and the SDP-Benephilly benefits navigation program via focus groups and a needs assessment.  

Project Objective 2

By the end of the project period, schools from the priority zip codes will receive culturally and linguistically tailored communications outreach on social needs and the benefits navigation program. The communications will be provided to 100% of SDP schools within the 18 priority zip codes. 

Project Objective 3

By the end of the project period, increase the percentage of families from the18 priority low-income zip codes that register for an appointment at the benefits navigation program by 50%.

AAP District

District III

Institutional Name

School District of Philadelphia

Contact 1

Kendra McDow, MD, MPH