Health Foundation Awards Grant to Expand Support to School-Based Health Centers

NEW BRITAIN (Oct. 21, 2008) - The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) Board of Directors approved grants, during its third-quarter board meeting,  totaling $227,000 to improve children’s mental health and oral health services, and reduce racial and ethnic health disparities.  

The Connecticut Association of School-Based Health Centers (CASBHC), a statewide association headquartered in North Haven, was awarded a three-year, $225,000 capacity-building grant.  The grant will help the organization, which for the past 14 years has operated solely as a volunteer organization, expand its infrastructure and the services it provides to 75 school-based health centers across the state.   

“Increased capacity will enable CASBHC to enhance support to centers that provide an array of health services to school children, including mental and oral health care,” says Will Crimi, vice president of program and evaluation for CT Health.  CASBHC will also promote full integration of school-based health centers into the state’s system of health care for children.   

The foundation also awarded a $2,000 grant to the University of Connecticut Health Center School of Medicine (Farmington) to support the UCONN Migrant Farm Worker Clinics, a program that provides mobile health outreach services to migrant farm workers in Connecticut.  This program offers students of all educational levels exposure to both the value of community service and the importance of primary care.  The mobile, free clinic visits farm worker barracks across the state, providing both prevention, and diagnosis and treatment for a variety of conditions – acute and chronic.

For additional information about the foundation, please contact Maryland Grier, communications officer, at 860.224.2200, ext. 32 or at maryland@cthealth.org. or Monette Goodrich, vice president of communications & public affairs, at ext. 13 or at monette@cthealth.org.

About the Connecticut Health Foundation (CHF) – www.cthealth.org:  the state’s largest independent, nonprofit grant-making foundation dedicated to improving the health of the people of Connecticut through systemic change, program innovation and health policy analysis. Since it was established in July 1999, CHF has awarded 448 grants in 44 cities and towns, totaling $37 million in three priority areas – children’s mental health, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, and oral health.