
Teachers for Healthy Kids (THK) a non-profit 501c 3 has been involved at the nexus of education and health within the school environment for over 20 years. It has worked with over 135 school districts in California and hosts the LEA Workgroup made up of over 260 personnel from LEAs and educational institutions in the state. The project, originally funded by The California Endowment original mission was enrollment of students and their families into low or no-cost health insurance, in partnership with California Teachers Association and the California Association of Health Plans. Recognizing that enrollment and retention in benefits also meant accessing services, THK evolved to work directly with LEAs and the state to improve school based reimbursement programs to sustain efforts within schools. THK maintains close ties to the school community working internally in the schools to involve their personnel in outreach and enrollment efforts as well as linking districts to outside agencies supporting their efforts. THK hosts regular zoom calls for the LEA Workgroup.
THK has worked with educators and health and education policy makers, with education organizations and LEAs on policy issues such as the expansion of Medi-Cal within schools, creating a restructure of California Department of Education to create a focal point for health programs through an Office of School Health within the Department, reforming the audit and investigations process and streamlining the LEA BOP and S-MAA programs. It sponsors monthly educational webinars and workshops on topics of interest on school- based health issues that are attended by 60-100 participants from school districts throughout the state.
THK surveyed school districts statewide on issues that would impact the State Plan Amendment proposal, conducting workshops in four areas of the state that were shared with DHCS
Created a workgroup of districts on the S-MAA deferral of funds that provided proposals to limit the impact on LEAs
Working with district representatives, California School Nurses Organization to implement the provision of vaccinations by school districts under the State Plan Amendment
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Interceded with DHCS to review audit findings for specific school districts such as Salinas Unified that prevented the collapse of the program. Negotiated with CalOptima Health Plan and Orange County districts on special education students receiving services through the health plan
Created focus groups in Sacramento and Los Angeles and provided a report to the MHSOAC on the perspective of school providers on the provision of mental health services at the school site that was incorporated in the final wellness in school reports.
Interceded with DHCS on numerous topics concerning LEA BOP programs including third party billing, identification of students served in case records required for audits, simplification of program requirements around the provision of vaccinations.
Teachers for Healthy Kids, a project of the California Teachers Association, was created in order to address the link between student health and learning though CTA member education and local association, district, and state interventions. The project operates under the CTA Community Outreach/Human Rights umbrella and consists of four programs, each of which addresses different health issues.
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There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form.