2015 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 33
BY SENATOR MILLS
A RESOLUTION
To designate April 23, 2015, as School-Based Health Care Awareness Day in Louisiana.
WHEREAS, school-based health care facilities are an important statewide resource
helping to address the health care needs of underserved and uninsured children, providing
needed preventive, diagnostic and treatment services, including direct primary care and
mental health care for acute and chronic illnesses, health education, case management
assistance, and immunizations; and
WHEREAS, these facilities provide vital counseling for more recently understood
health care concerns that have replaced infectious diseases as the major illness of childhood,
including such risk factors as childhood obesity, asthma, smoking, substance abuse,
violence, and safety issues, as well as behavioral problems ranging from mild to severe; and
WHEREAS, in 1990, as policymakers became concerned with the high morbidity
and mortality rates of adolescents, the office of public health, within the Department of
Health and Hospitals, was asked to determine the feasibility of opening school-based health
care facilities in the state; and
WHEREAS, a year later, the Adolescent School Health Initiative was enacted and
school-based health care facilities came into existence across the state; and
WHEREAS, a school-based health care facility provides convenient access to
comprehensive, primary, and preventive physical and mental health services for public
school students available at the school site; and
WHEREAS, as students spend a significant portion of their day on school grounds,
school-based health care facilities offer accessible, convenient health care, while
encouraging family and community involvement, reducing student absenteeism, reducing
parental leave from work for doctor visits, and working with school personnel to meet the
needs of the students and their families; and
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WHEREAS, school-based health care facilities complement school nurses and social
workers, where they exist, because, generally, the scope of practice of such nurses and social
workers is more limited than that of the school-based health care facility, which have a broad
mandate; and
WHEREAS, school-based health care facilities are able to provide comprehensive
health services to students, providing treatment for minor illness and injury, comprehensive
physicals as may be required for school-related activities, behavioral health counseling,
treatments for chronic diseases, required vaccines, and other beneficial services that enhance
the learning environment of a school; and
WHEREAS, at this time, sixty-two school-based health care facilities are operated
in twenty-seven parishes throughout the state; and
WHEREAS, these health care facilities serve an additional fifty-three feeder schools;
and
WHEREAS, in the 2013-2014 school year over forty-seven thousand students have
made nearly one hundred and fifteen thousand visits to school-based health care facilities
in Louisiana.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby designate April 23, 2015, as School-Based Health Care Awareness Day in
Louisiana.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
current president of the board of the Alliance on School-Based Health.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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