{"id":62387,"date":"2019-02-05T20:08:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T03:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-based-health-clinic-now-open\/"},"modified":"2019-02-06T03:08:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T03:08:58","slug":"dolores-school-based-health-clinic-now-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-school-based-health-clinic-now-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores school-based health clinic now open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Staff
Staff at the new Dolores school-based health clinic prepare for the Harry Potter-themed Schoolarama with some potions materials. From left: Debrah Archer, Shannon Wells, Rebecca Gostlin, Vickie Martinez and Julie Hite.<\/span>Erika Alvero\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After over a year of planning, design, and construction, the school-based health clinic in Dolores is up and running.<\/p>\n

The clinic, modeled after its partner site at the Southwest Open School in Cortez, opened its doors in November and aims to care for students\u2019 physical, mental and behavioral health, all on-campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can keep kids healthy, then we can keep them in school,\u201d Julie Hite, a registered nurse with the clinic, said during the site\u2019s open house last week. She and her fellow providers took part in the Dolores Elementary School\u2019s Harry Potter-themed Schoolarama<\/a> event, having students and families make \u201cpotions\u201d as a way to learn about the nutritional benefits \u2013 something of ginger, almonds, and sweet potato chips.<\/p>\n

The Dolores and SWOS sites now operate collectively as the \u201cFour Corners Health Clinics<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

To build the Dolores clinic, the district received a $25,000 planning grant from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment and a $478,000 Colorado Health Foundation grant<\/a>. It\u2019s now situated at the edge of the elementary school, although they were providing services out of some shared space at the secondary school since the beginning of this school year, Hite said.<\/p>\n

The center operates in partnership with the SWOS clinic, which opened in 1998. Both sites are staffed with a family nurse practitioner and a licensed professional counselor for two full days every week. Providers are usually at the SWOS clinic on Mondays and Wednesdays and at the Dolores clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays.<\/p>\n

A key benefit of a school-based health center, Hite said, is its convenient access for children. The health clinic is especially vital in Dolores because of the lack of providers after Dr. Allan Scott Burnside\u2019s office closed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany kids don\u2019t have access to health care because they don\u2019t have transportation or they don\u2019t have insurance,\u201d Hite said. \u201cSo we just help them with all that stuff being on-site.\u201d<\/p>\n

For patients without health insurance, the clinic charges on a sliding scale based on income and family size, according to the clinic\u2019s website. Currently, payment ranges from $5 to $35 per visit.<\/p>\n

When students stop by for a physical checkup, they also visit the behavioral health specialist as part of the clinic\u2019s approach to integrated, holistic care. The specialist screens students for concerning behaviors or symptoms, but also reinforces positive actions, the providers said.<\/p>\n

So far, people are still getting to know them, Martinez said. The behavioral health program has seen a lot of students coming through, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cBehavioral health is one of those things that it\u2019s ongoing,\u201d said Rebecca Gostlin, a licensed professional counselor at the clinic. \u201cSo just getting to Cortez is a barrier. When you have to go for three weeks in a row, that\u2019s a lot of back-and-forth, taking off of work, getting a kid out of school. Being able to have it on-site for kids, that just takes one barrier out. So I think people have really realized it\u2019s there, and they\u2019re using it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clinic will serve all students enrolled in the Dolores School District RE-4A, siblings under the age of 18 of enrolled students, Dolores alumni up to the age of 21 and any child in the Dolores community ages 5 and under.<\/p>\n

ealvero@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

offer crucial services to community, providers say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,103,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-62387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62387"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=62387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}