The Connecticut Institute For Communities, Inc (CIFC), represented by President and CEO James H. Maloney, JD, and Melanie Bonjour, program manager for five school-based health centers, presented Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra and Newtown Middle School Principal Thomas A. Einhorn with CIFC's Community Leadership Award in a brief ceremony January 24.

According to Mr Maloney, who also previously served the region in the US Congress, Mrs Llodra and Mr Einhorn were key to the efforts to implement a school-based health center (SBHC) at Newtown Middle School - and its subsequent success. Introduction of the health center to the Newtown community, students, and staff would not have been possible without the continued comprehensive and sincere support of Mrs Llodra and Mr Einhorn, he said.

The school-based health center (SBHC) at Newtown Middle School opened February 26, 2015. Mrs Llodra critically supported funding for the SBHC with the Connecticut State General Assembly and the Department of Public Health (DPH). The NMS licensed out-patient facility is the newest of five school-based health center currently sponsored by CIFC; and more than 90 DPH-funded health centers statewide.

Now established as an on-going service within the community, the SBHC offers multidisciplinary medical and behavioral health care.

Mr Maloney noted that the middle school SBHC is performing at or above each of its goals and performance measures - some of which include: BMI screenings, asthma care plans, depression screenings, student education efforts, and supportive referral services.

In the community, Mrs Llodra worked with a local planning group to select the location for the school-based health center. The middle school was selected as the long-term location to address a need for medical and behavioral health services as documented by a steady increase in student visits to the nurse office, and reported waiting lists for mental health services requested by middle school-aged children in Newtown following the 12/14 tragedy.

Many mental health services that have been introduced to the Newtown and Sandy Hook communities in response to the 2012 tragedy have ended or been scaled back. The SBHC was opened in direct response to these changes.

Led by Mr Einhorn, Newtown Middle School welcomed the SBHC care team into the school's operations and culture. The success of the SBHC within NMS is due in large part to the principal's support of interactive student activities.

For example, one ongoing lunch time health promotion called "Dine & Discover" serves as disease prevention educational program engaging students about various health topics. December's program focused on adolescent depression screening, and saw 40 percent of the school's students participating in the outreach activity, receiving information from SBHC staff on depression warning signs, and were entered into a schoolwide raffle as an incentive for participating.

Mr Maloney said the Connecticut DPH requires 85 percent of students seen at SBHCs with mental health concerns to be screened using a DPH-approved screening tool. NMS's SBHC has achieved a 100 percent depression screening rate among their student patient population. Students at NMS this year were between 6 and 9 years old on 12/14.

In this connection:

*Behavioral health visits make up 73 percent of patient visits year to date at the NMS SBHC;

*100 percent of students and staff have received direct in-person or by mail outreach education about the services at the SBHC; and

*NMS has 35 percent of its student population enrolled as patients at the SBHC - already achieving 88 percent of its goal of 40 percent enrollment for the 2016-2017 academic year.

"Last year we honored Dr Joseph V. Erardi, Newtown superintendent of schools, for his work with the Newtown Board of Education in supporting the planning effort for the NMS SBHC," Mr Maloney said during his visit. "This year, CIFC is delighted to present our Community Leadership Award to First Selectman Llodra and Principal Einhorn for their great efforts in helping us to successfully implement this new SBHC at NMS. They are true community leaders, and we are very grateful for their dedication to the children of Newtown."

The NMS SBHC is staffed by a multidisciplinary team of professionals including a licensed nurse practitioner, licensed clinical social worker, and a medical assistant.

The center offers comprehensive integrated primary care services to the middle school students including diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic illnesses, behavioral health services including individual, group, and family counseling, and population-based health education services.

These services do not replace existing nursing or social work services offered by the school system, Mr Maloney explained, but enhance the level of care available to the students with a goal of improving their health and well-being and reducing absenteeism resulting from unmet health conditions.

The mission of the CIFC, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Danbury, is to advance its communities, and foster greater opportunities for low- and moderate-income individuals and families of its service areas through a combination of health, educational, and human service programs, and housing and economic development projects.

CIFC sponsors a federally qualified health center, the Greater Danbury Community Health Center at 70 Main Street in Danbury, which provides comprehensive primary health care to people of all ages: newborn to geriatric, particularly those who are medically underserved, regardless of their ability to pay or their insurance status, thereby ensuring affordable, accessible, comprehensive, high quality health care to all.

CIFC's school-based health centers are a division of CIFC's Greater Danbury Community Health Center.