In the News

Students attending William Penn Senior High School this fall can expect one major change coming soon — though it’s a change that will benefit the well-being of the entire student body.

Family First Health’s new school-based health center will be open soon, just after the start of the school year, providing students with on-site care and behavioral health support.

“Research has shown that school-based health centers are valuable for both health outcomes, but also educational outcomes,” said Amy Chamberlin, the senior director of development at Family First Health. “Because it’s in the school, students won’t have to leave. They’ll be in the classroom more.”

This is Family First Health’s second school-based health center in York City, with its first being located at Hannah Penn K-8.

The Hannah Penn facility has been a success story for Family First Health for the last 27 years, prompting a desire to expand to other schools in York City, Chamberlin said.

With this project in the works for the last couple of years, construction will finally come to a head this fall.

“We’re excited to open our new school-based health center in the school soon, making sure these students are happy and healthy!” Family First Health announced in a Facebook post. “Good luck to all of the York City School District students going back to the classrooms this week!”

In total, the facility will contain two exam rooms, one consult room and a refrigerator and freezer for vaccines. Family First Health will employ a physician assistant who will be starting out over there as a provider and a host of supporting staff.

This includes a site lead medical assistant, medical receptionist, community health worker, behavioral consulting associate and health center coordinator.

“They can expect what they would get at a regular doctor’s office,” Chamberlin said, adding that the facility will support preventive and chronic care, long-term care and acute care for diagnostic purposes.

Additional resources will include family planning work and behavioral health support, she added.

“When patients come to our centers, they go through a screening that could detect anxiety and depression,” Chamberlin explained. “So if something comes up in that screening, we’ll be able to do a handoff to the behavioral health consultant and they’ll be able to come in and provide resources to support that student.”

During the 2023-24 school year, William Penn’s school nurse received more than 10,000 school visits, Chamberlin said.

Chamberlin said she wanted to be clear that the new health facility will not replace or eliminate William Penn’s school nurse — but rather provide additional support.

“One of the reasons that they wanted us to come is to support the school nurses because they are sometimes overwhelmed with students that come to see them,” she said. “And some of the things like chronic health conditions, diabetes, asthma, sickle cell disorder, things like that, the nurses can’t really support them with. So this will be a resource for them.”

YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — It’s a first of its kind for an area high school and, Wednesday, we got our first look inside.

Family First is opening a new school-based health center inside York’s William Penn High School.

Workers are putting the finishing touches on it.

It will be far more extensive than your typical school nurse’s office.

“Nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and physicians will be rotating through this site so we can provide comprehensive primary care, which will include, acute care,” said Jenny Englerth, President and CEO of Family First Health. “We really want to be their primary care provider.”

The idea is that students won’t have to choose between missing a doctor’s appointment for school, or vice versa.

Family First also has an in-school pediatric clinic inside the Hannah Penn K-8 school.

Watch the video here.

The people who ex-offenders cross paths with the days and weeks after they leave prison is crucial to their success. Bro2Go, an empowerment organization for those who have served time and at-risk youth, has partnered with Family First Health to help launch a healthy start for these men and women.

“It’s vitally important to have organizations … family members, friends that are connecting with their loved ones that are incarcerated, because everyone makes a mistake, everyone goes down the wrong road,” Da’Laine Simpson, founder and CEO of Bro2Go said while launching a partnership with Family First Health.

Simpson said that he is in York County and Dauphin County prison on a weekly basis.

The organization helps those leaving prison with emergency shelter, obtaining valid identification, aids in workforce development, resume writing, searching for jobs and helping to obtain tools for work, like protective gear, Simpson said.

With an office in York at 101 S. Queen St. and in Harrisburg at 1821 Fulton St., Bro2Go serves at-risk, ex-offenders from York, Dauphin and Cumberland counties.

Simpson learned of Family First Health through their social media presence and thought that a partnership was a natural evolution for both services.

“As a federally qualified health center, we work with individuals that are under-insured, any medical, dental or optical. … We do a lot of work with reentry, we also go to the York County Prison. We try to meet individuals where they are,” Erin Schmidt, community medical program manager for Family First Health said.

Simpson said that the partnership is important to make ex offenders aware that the resource exists as they relaunch their lives.

“Your health is the most important thing you can do,” Simpson highlights as a foundation for success in life.

“It’s that one person that is looking out for someone to help them, to pick them up, a person to lean on and guide them along the way that will make the difference” that Simpson sees as a game changer for someone exiting prison.

Watch the video here.

Da’Laine Simpson served time in jail for 90 days, and it took him exactly 90 days to change his entire outlook on life.

“A lot of individuals never thought about having an exit plan when they come home,” Simpson said. “It takes all of us to work together to change the lives of these individuals who need a chance.”

While serving time at Dauphin County Prison, Simpson began shaping the framework for what would become Bro2Go — a nonprofit based in Harrisburg providing assistance to formerly incarcerated folks reentering their communities.

On Wednesday morning, Simpson chatted with Family First Health employees who set up a table at Bro2Go’s York location. The two organizations recently partnered this year to provide free blood pressure screenings and HIV testing to ex-offenders who need it.

Family First Health staffers also helped formerly incarcerated individuals enroll in and navigate insurance. While inmates might go for health screenings and have access to medication while serving time — how do those individuals continue receiving health care once released?

“We’re making sure that when these individuals get out, they have medical coverage. That way they are sustaining on their medicine and they’re not going backward,” Simpson said. “So having the partnership with Family First is vital to the reentry community.”

Under the Federal Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy, incarceration automatically strips inmates of their Medicaid coverage. There is no equivalent system to reconnect released prisoners with health insurance, according to the Boston University School of Public Health.

Erin Schmidt, community medical program manager at Family First Health, said the most important thing for her is eliminating all barriers to care. As such, the organization often collaborates with senior centers, homeless shelters — and now, Bro2Go, too.

“I have a very wonderful nurse and community health worker who will greet you with a smile and be more than happy to help you with any of your needs and talk to you privately,” Schmidt said.

By noon on Wednesday, not a single person stopped by Bro2Go’s York Location at 101 S. Queen St. in York City. The organizers said that such pop-up events can be hit or miss.

Schmidt said the stiflingly hot weather may have also played a role. That won’t stop them from continuing to get the word out, however.

Though this is the first event collaboration between Family First Health and Bro2Go, Simpson said this won’t be the last chance to receive medical care for ex-offenders.

At its York location, Bro2Go currently serves five juvenile clients and 21 adults. As part of its outreach program, Simpson and his team visit York County Prison every Monday and Wednesday to meet with both incarcerated men and women and hold life skill seminars.

The nonprofit also has a location in Harrisburg, located at 1821 Fulton St.

“What I want to connect with people is that you’re not alone. My biggest message is that you are not alone,” Simpson added. “We can take care of your basic needs support. I can show you the path and I can get you on a path.”

YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — This isn’t York’s first wave of Haitian immigrants, but — as one measure of how much the community has grown — it is the first wave arriving to find a Haitian restaurant: Ramapou, on West Market Street, which opened in early June.

Ramapou’s owner, Joubert Fils-Aime, moved first to Miami, then New York and then Lancaster, Pa., a decade ago and speaks barely-accented English; the hostess/waitress is a new arrival who depends on Fils-Aime to translate a question from a customer about whether or not a chicken dish has all white-meat chicken.

Loucena Emile, now a community health worker with Family First Health in York, couldn’t have had that conversation in English either when she first came here in 2014 after a brief stay in Georgia, her first stop with her mother after leaving Haiti; Emile’s uncle already lived here and thought they would like the city.

“It was difficult,” Emile recalled. “I learned English in Haiti, but it’s nothing compared to the English Americans speak here.”

Emile’s uncle and other earlier immigrants helped her then; now she helps the latest wave, which — although no one knows for sure exactly how many Haitians have come recently — everyone involved agrees is growing in the wake of natural and manmade disasters in Haiti, where gangs are believed to control 80% of the country’s capital.

“We’ve seen significant increases in the number of minutes and hours that we’re using in terms of translation” services between English and Haitian Creole, said Ruth Robbins, chief program officer with York’s Community Progress Council, which connects local people with social services and is actively recruiting — and offering higher salaries to — Haitian Creole-speaking employees.

A brand new medical clinic will be open at William Penn High School in time for the start of the fall semester.

The clinic, operated by Family First Health, is part of a longstanding relationship between the nonprofit and York City schools to bring accessible healthcare to children. The two-year-long project will come to a head this summer when unused classrooms are transformed into a doctor’s office within the school, said Jenny Englerth, the president and CEO of Family First Health.

“Our focus is really in this project on improving the health of the school and everyone who is in the school every day,” Englerth said. “The school will not be a site open to the public, so that we can really zero in on focusing on improving the health of students, staff and faculty.”

The new medical site at William Penn will be comprised of five staff members focusing on comprehensive primary care and integrated behavioral health services.

Though the facility’s health providers will work with students on monitoring and improving health, it will not replace William Penn’s already established nursing staff, according to Englerth.

“There’s a whole team of great nurses who interact with students and will continue to interact with students,” she added. “We may be a next step if the school nurse believes that a student needs more intensive care or a more intensive evaluation. They can then come right over to the health center.”

With over 1,600 students at William Penn each year, additional health resources will continue to strengthen students’ relationships with wellness, food and fitness.

Additionally, having a primary care facility located within the walls of William Penn, rather than an out-of-school doctor’s office, will help limit the time that students are out of school, Englerth said.

This philosophy has already been implemented in several other York City schools, including Hannah Penn K-8 which houses a Family First Health center and organizes routine dentist visits.

“A school-based health center also helps just from that practical sense of time management in getting healthcare services to students,” Englerth said, “but having minimal disruptions causing minimal disruptions in the school day.”

Last year, several members of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration visited the clinic, noting the importance of expanding healthcare access. The facility received a $2 million grant via the United Health Foundation in 2020 to help launch its programming.

“As a physician, I worked with families whose health was negatively impacted by the lack of access to health care and other essential services,” said state Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh. “This is a complex issue, and I am thrilled to be here with partners in health care, government, and education to be a part of the solution.”

Like all of Family First Health clinics, it accepts most types of insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare. No patient is ever turned away based on their inability to pay, Englerth added.

As a nonprofit, Family First Health accepts donations to continue delivering healthcare to theYork community.
The William Penn High project will cost $1 million in its first year of operations, Englerth said.

“This really sets students up for a lifetime of better health by having exposure to healthcare in a school setting,” she added. The ability to offer healthcare services directly to them in their school setting allows them to get experience thinking about how to take care of themselves and how to navigate the healthcare system — all in this protected and trusted setting of the school.”

(WHTM) — A full-service health clinic without leaving school, that’s what leaders say is coming to one Midstate high school.

This is happening at William Penn High School in York. Family First Health is building a school-based health center.

Students will be able to get their annual physicals and more, all without leaving campus.

“Acute care as well, so if somebody doesn’t feel well that day, could be an injury, could be a mental health issue or concern,” Jenny Englerth, President and CEO of Family First Health, said. “So any of those kinds of things that a family might typically take their child to, a doctor’s office for will be able to offer during the school day to all students.”

York City’s high school is about to get a school-based health center.

On Friday, Family First Health, a federally qualified health center, announced it plans to open a student-based health center at William Penn Senior High School.

The full-service primary care office will serve the school’s 1,600 students, expanding on the existing health office with student access to medical and integrated behavioral healthcare.

The health center already operates a school-based health center at Hannah Penn, a K-8 school. The new center will offer similar services found at the Hannah Penn center, including primary care, integrated behavioral health care, health and wellness coaching and mobile school dentistry.

“We know accessible healthcare provides greater opportunity for students,” said Jenny Englerth, Family First Health president and CEO. “When they can access the health care they need, students learn better, attendance rates improve, and graduation rates increase.”

Lancaster and Chambersburg also have school-based health centers.

Studies show that students who have access to school-based health centers do better in school, have higher high school graduation rates, and decreased school disciplinary issues, according to the School-Based Health Alliance.

Teenagers who are reluctant to see a doctor are more likely to get help for health issues like depression and anxiety, if they have access to a school-based health center, according to a report by KidsHealth.

“For almost 30 years we have had a longstanding relationship with Family First Health and our students have benefitted,” said Dr. Andrea Berry-Brown, Superintendent of the School District of the City of York. “We are excited because this new center at William Penn Senior High School allows us to give students access to seamless medical and behavioral health care services pre-K through 12th grade. We will reach more students and continue to show that when the community works together, it’s better for our students.”

William Penn Senior High School is ranked in the bottom 50% of all schools in Pennsylvania for overall test scores, according to US News & World Report. The school ranks 100% of its students as economically disadvantaged. It is the only high school in York.

There are about 2,500 school-based health clinics across the country.

Donations and pledges are being accepted through Family First Health to support the center at William Penn with a fundraising goal of $1.2 million.