In the News

October 10, 2024: Family First Health marked the grand opening of its new school-based health center at
William Penn Senior High School with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, Oct. 9.

This facility will provide comprehensive healthcare services to more than 1,800 students,
ensuring they have easy access to quality care while minimizing the amount of time they are
outside the classroom for medical needs, according to a news release.

The health center will address students’ physical and mental health needs, including routine
check-ups, vaccinations, mental health counseling and more.

The York County Economic Alliance hosted the event, featuring comments from Jenny
Englerth, Family First Health President and CEO, Dr. George Fitch, assistant superintendent
of student services, Mayor Michael Helfrich
and others.

YORK, Pa. —

 

A new medical center opened Monday at William Penn High School in York.

The center will offer comprehensive primary medical and behavioral health care to students, primarily those who are underserved and have limited access to care.

The School District of the City of York said the center will improve academic success by reducing the amount of time students are outside the classroom to receive medical care.

“If there are acute problems or if there’s a need for a wellness check, students can come down with an appointment if they are registered. They can have that appointment here at the school, not leave, not get any absences from school. It’s a convenience,” Superintendent Andrea Berry-Brown said.

Family First Health is running the health center.

It said many families in York face significant barriers to accessing medical care for their children, including the inability to miss work, limited transportation, lack of health insurance and high costs of treatment.

The see video, click on WGAL William Penn Segment 09.23.24

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.